The Gospel of John

                                                Commentary

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John 1:1



The “Word” is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. Before there was anyone or anything, there was God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit existing in eternity past.






John 1:2



Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God, and Jesus is God, and was with God at the same time. This teaches us that God the Father and God the Son, although they are only one God, are two separate members of the trinity of the Godhead.






John 1:3



The Lord Jesus Christ is the maker of all things, meaning that he made everything, which means he made everything out of nothing because when he started, he had nothing to work with. All God had was his will and his word in the beginning, and that is when he spoke everything into existence, with his will and his word.






John 1:4



Jesus Christ is the source of all light, and he is the source of all physical life, and all spiritual life, and all eternal life. In him was life, meaning that he is the well spring of life. Jesus created us, and God watched us walk away from him, and damn ourselves to Hell. He watched us die spiritually, but he did not abandon us. Jesus died on the cross to restore us to the way that we were back in the beginning of creation, so Christ has done it all.






John 1:5



Light reveals truth and reality. People can look pretty good spiritually when you measure them against other people because that is a dull light, but when we measure ourselves or other people next to the Lord Jesus Christ, that is the bright light that no one looks good against.






John 1:6



Right away God makes it clear that you can listen to John the Baptist because it says, God sent him. His message, and his ministry came straight from God.






John 1:7



John’s job was to be a witness for Jesus Christ, and to give testimony to the light refers to Jesus Christ. John came to tell as many people about Jesus as he possibly could, meaning to tell them who Jesus was, and why he is here, and what you are to do about it.






John 1:8



So, John was not the important one, instead he just came to tell people about the important one which was Jesus Christ. When the preacher becomes the focus of attention, focus is messed up and needs to be corrected right away.






John 1:9



Jesus is the true light. Being around Jesus and listening to him speak was like shining a bright light on your soul. The word of God has the same effect because the word of God is the word of Christ. Jesus Christ is the living Word.






John 1:10



Jesus created the world, and he came into the world and introduced himself as God the Creator, but the world was so filled with sin that it did not even recognize its own creator. Like today, a lot of people know about Christ, but they do not know Christ.






John 1:11



When Christ came into the world, he came to his own possessions (us) because he created us, and he created everything. The Bible says that the earth is the Lord’s and everything on it, and his own possessions did not know him or want him.






John 1:12



The Lord’s chosen people, Israel, rejected him, and most people rejected him, like most people reject him today. The offer for salvation is still out there, and Jesus will receive anyone who accepts it with open arms.






John 1:13






You must be born of God John says, meaning into the family of God, to receive eternal life. You are born into that family when you repent of your sin and ask Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior. It is talking of a spiritual birth.






John 1:14



God became flesh, but he did not stop being God when he became flesh. He is now, and always will be God and Man, meaning 100% God and 100% Man.






John 1:15



John says that Jesus was before him, even though John was conceived 6 months before Jesus. Physically John is 6 months older than Jesus, and this is possible because Jesus existed before he came to this earth because Jesus the Son is eternal.






John 1:16



Because of Jesus Christ, all of us who belong to him have received one gracious gift from on top of another gracious gift from God. It started with forgiveness, and justification, and eternal protection, which means that no one can snatch you out of God’s hand. It continued with adoption into his family, and answers to prayers, and a new body on order.






John 1:17



All the Laws of God are good, and they are also Holy. Knowing and obeying God’s Laws most of the time cannot save anyone, and they were never given to save anyone. The Laws were given as a guide to show us what God’s character is like, and to show us what God’s standard really is, and to show us how imperfect that we are. They also show us how much we need a Savior, which is Jesus Christ.






John 1:18



No human being has ever seen God in all his Holy splendor if they did, they would die right on the spot. God says that no one can see me and live, but came Jesus 2000 years ago and Christ has made the invisible eternal God known to us. Jesus is the perfect revelation of All-Mighty God because he is God.






John 1:19



John the Baptist was causing a lot of excitement in that area. Some people loved him, but the religious leaders could not stand him because they could not control him. John did not preach their humanistic rules, and regulations, and man-made rules, instead he preached the pure word of God, and he even called the religious rulers to repentance.






John 1:20



A lot of people thought that John the Baptist was the Christ because he was different from everybody else, and because this was also about the time the Messiah was going to show up. John told the rulers, I’m not him.






John 1:21



They asked him if he was Elias come back from Heaven, and they asked him if he was the great prophet, who they were all expecting, or was he the Messiah? John said No to all the questions, so they wanted to know who he was.






John 1:22



These religious leaders were representatives of the religious body, and they must now report back to their superiors, and they wanted an answer to two questions. Who are You? and what is your business?






John 1:23



John said, you want to know who I am? I am a voice, that is all that I am, just a voice. Just here to tell people to repent of their sins so that they can be prepared to receive Christ when he arrives.






John 1:24,25



Since the Pharisees did not give John the Baptist the “Ok” to start his ministry of baptism, they want to know why he is baptizing. They felt that they had to sanction every single person who ministered. If someone was not sanctioned by them, to them they were not legitimate, and since they did not sanction John, they want to know what business he had in baptizing.






John 1:26



John said, I baptize with water, and you think that it is a big deal, but it is not, not compared to what is coming after me.






John 1:27



It was the job of the lowest slave in the household to meet a guest at the door, and to make them comfortable, and to take off their sandals and wash their dirty hot feet. John says, you want to know who I am, I will tell you. I am lower than the lowest slave, meaning that I am nothing, so I am not even worthy to be the lowest slave for the Christ, who is about to arrive.






John 1:28,29



Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. All those lambs, and all those sin offerings in the Old Testament under the Mosaic Law covered over sin, but none of them ever removed sin from those who offered them. It just covered them until the Lamb of God could come, which is Jesus Christ, and he lived a sinless life, and he was a perfect sacrifice to pay for our sins.






John 1:30,31



John baptized people as a sign of their repentance, but God had another reason for giving him that ministry of baptism. God told John that somehow, someway that he would use that ministry of water baptism to introduce the Messiah to the Nation of Israel.






John 1:32,33



God told John, you are going to baptize a man, and after you baptize him, you are going to see a dove fly from Heaven, and land on top of that man and that dove is going to stay on him, and that will be the Messiah. that is my Son, and that is how you will know.






John 1:34



As soon as that dove landed on Jesus, John started pointing at him to the people because he knew Jesus was the Messiah.






John 1:35



Notice, the disciples who stood with John were his disciples, but not for long.






John 1:36



John sees Jesus passing by and he immediately knew he was the Lamb of God. John directed all the attention of his followers to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the way it should be for all Christians because the focus should not be on us, but on the Lord Jesus Christ, and this is especially true for preachers, and teachers of the word of God.






John 1:37



As soon as these two disciples knew the truth, they became Jesus’ disciples and followed him because they were hungry for truth. People who hunger for truth, will recognize it, and when they recognize it, they will follow it and apply it.



John 1:38



Back in those days, Jesus was not the only one who had disciples. Rabbi’s had disciples, and prophets had disciples because disciples mean a learner. To be a disciple, you had to stay with your master all the time, and you had to observe not only what they taught, but how they conducted themselves. Therefore, they asked Jesus where he was staying, so they were basically saying, we want to be your disciples.






John 1:39



If we really want to be disciples, we must spend more than a couple hours a week with Jesus, Jesus should never be out of our minds. Jesus knew that these two were sincere in their desire to follow him, so Jesus invited them to join him. Jesus never turns anyone down if they are sincere.






John 1:40,41



So, Andrew finds Jesus himself, the first thing that he does is he tells his brother about Christ. One of the signs that a person is really saved is that they have a desire for somebody else to know Christ in a personal way.



John 1:42



The name Peter means rock, and Simon thought that he was a rock, meaning that he thought he was strong and tough, but deep inside he was not, spiritually speaking, but Jesus gave him the name Peter already. It was going to take some time for Peter, but Christ was going to transform him into a spiritual rock who would be firm and strong in faith.






John 1:43



Philip was a married man with a few daughters, but Jesus still called him to be his disciple. Jesus invites him to follow him up north in Galilee.






John 1:44



Bethsaida is up north where Jesus was heading, and Philip becomes one of his disciples.






John 1:45



Philip did the same thing Andrew did because he had no doubt that Jesus was the Messiah, so he told Nathaniel to come too. For true Christians, that is the most natural thing in the world, so if you are a Christian, you love to talk about Jesus.






John 1:46



Philip said, we found Jesus of Nazareth, and he is the Messiah. Nathaniel made his statement about Nazareth because Nazareth was really looked down upon because it was just a little hick town way up north in Israel. The people were looked down upon by the rest of the country, and they had a bad reputation. Philip did not try to sell Jesus to Nathanael, so to speak. Christ does not need to be sold all we must do is to reveal Jesus, and those who seek truth will be drawn to him.






John 1:47



“No Guile” means he is an honest man, and Nathaniel was an honest man. Jesus had never met him before, but he knew all about him. Jesus knew that Nathaniel was an honest man, and he knew it because Jesus is God.






John 1:48



That fig tree was not in the physical eyesight of Jesus, but Jesus saw Nathaniel under it anyway, and this is the reason why Nathaniel was so amazed.






John 1:49



Nathaniel is amazed that Jesus knew that he had been under that fig tree. This is all the evidence which Nathaniel needed to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.






John 1:50



This is amazing, but Jesus is saying, you have not seen anything yet. That is nothing compared to what you are going to see because you will see greater things which will begin with the wedding in Cana.






John 1:51



Remember when Jacob left home for the first time because his brother was chasing him and wanted to kill him. Jacob was going to visit his Uncle Labon 400 miles away. The first night that Jacob camped out in the wilderness, God gave Jacob a vision, and in that vision, he saw a ladder stretching from earth to Heaven, and on the ladder were angels of God ascending and descending on that ladder. God spoke to Jacob. Jesus is saying, I am the connection between Heaven and earth, between sinful man and the Holy God. Jesus is the ladder, meaning the only ladder that can get anybody from earth to Heaven.






John 2:1



Three days after John gave his testimony to those two disciples, telling them of who Jesus was, Mary is invited to a wedding in the city of Cana.






John 2:2



Mary’s influences made it possible for Jesus and his disciples to go to the wedding. Notice that Joseph is not mentioned, and this was odd.






John 2:3



Being out of wine was a huge deal back in those days, so it was a social disgrace for a couple to run out of wine at their wedding. The couple could be ostracized for the rest of their lives because they ran out of wine.






John 2:4



The bible says that Jesus is David’s son, but it also says that Jesus is David’s Lord. The same is true with Jesus and Mary, meaning that Jesus is Mary’s son, but he is also her Lord. Jesus loves his mother, and the bible says whom the Lord loves he rebukes. Jesus is correcting his mother right here. Jesus is reminding Mary that his actions are governed by his heavenly Father, and not by anyone else.






John 2:5



Mary takes her Lord’s correction in the way that you would expect from a Godly woman. Mary receives it with humility, and responds with humility.






John 2:6



The Jews went through all kinds of religious ritualistic washings before they would eat, and a lot of it was Pharisaic nonsense, although some of it was biblical, but they would go overboard, and it had nothing to do with God’s word. These six pots contained the water for all their washings.






John 2:7



Every word of the bible is critical and important, and God put it there for a reason. The word “brim” here is important, so they were told to fill the water pots to the brim because Jesus is going to change that water into wine. Jesus was specific about them being filled to the brim, so that the people could not claim that he diluted the water with wine, and thus deny his miracle.






John 2:8



The governor is the ruler of the feast, and he is the one who oversees the food and drink. Between the time in which the pots were filled with water, to the time in which the governor took a taste, the water was changed into wine by the power of Jesus Christ.






John 2:9,10



Jesus did not just change the water into wine, but he turned it into good wine. It must have been good because the governor said that they usually serve the good stuff first, and the bad stuff, so he was wondering why this wine was not served first.






John 2:11



The miracle of changing water into wine revealed the glory and the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus looked like a normal man because he was a normal man, but when he did a miracle, it proved that he was God as well as man. His miracles made a statement about his deity. This miracle was important for his disciples to see right away that Jesus was more than just a man.






John 2:12,13



Jesus went up to Jerusalem to the Passover Feast, and it was important for both Jesus and for us, that he go to the Passover because if he does not go to the Passover, we all go to Hell. Jesus was not crucified at this Passover, but it was still critical that Jesus went to this one because it was required by God that every Jewish man attend every year, and if you did not go, it was a sin. So, if Jesus does not go, he sins and is not perfect and his death on the cross does not pay for our sins because he needed to be sinless to pay for our sins.






John 2:14-17



Using Holy things to make a buck is wrong, and using Holy things like this angers Christ, and this angered Christ. This is not talking about free-will offerings, instead this is about people who market their ministries, and people who charge to speak the word of God. If Jesus was here, they would be feeling the sting of his whip. Jesus told his apostles, freely you have received, so freely you shall give. If you have a zeal for God, you are going to get mad at things which dishonor him.



John 2:18



If the rulers would have spent more time with God, and in the word of God, and less time trying to market their religion, they would not have asked Jesus for a sign. The rulers would have recognized that Jesus going into the Holy Temple, and cleaning house was a sign. It was Messianic Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled.






John 2:19-21



Jesus said, you want a sign that I am the Christ, and Son of God, and that I have the right to drive these heas out of the temple, kill me, and in three days, I will raise myself up. These rulers misunderstood, and they thought that Jesus was talking about the literal temple, but he was talking about himself.



John 2:22



After Jesus was raised, this clicked in the minds of the disciple’s minds, they understood what Jesus had meant.






John 2:23



Christ went down to Judea and did all sorts of miracles, and all the people witnessed it and believe in him. But for many it was a shallow belief, which was based upon his miracles. So, when the miracles stopped, and their flesh is no longer tickled, they will stop believing.






John 2:24



Jesus knew that their faith was superficial, and he did not count on them because they were not serious about their beliefs. They believed in Christ, but to them he was just another thing in their lives, and not the main thing.






John 2:25



This is more evidence that Jesus is God because only God knows what is going on inside of a person, and Jesus knew what was going on inside these people. They only had a zeal for Jesus when they saw the miracles. Jesus knows our heart, and if our minds are set on worldly things, or on him.






John 3:1



Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews, and a member of the Jewish Counsel, and he was a Pharisee. Pharisees were strict, and legalistic, and they were big on man-made traditions, and many were hypocrites. Most of them were filled with sinful pride, but not Nicodemus because he was different.






John 3:2



Nicodemus believed that Jesus was God, or from God, and he wanted to talk to him about it. He could not talk to Jesus during the day because of all the crowds that were gathered around Jesus because there were just too many people. He was also a little skittish about his fellow Pharisees finding out that he was interested in Jesus.






John 3:3



Jesus just got straight to the point with Nicodemus because he knew what Nicodemus was thinking, Nicodemus was thinking that his religion was fine. Nicodemus was religious, and a good Pharisee, but his religion was not going to save his soul from Hell. Jesus told him he needs to be “Born Again.”






John 3:4



Nicodemus is really confused because the only kind of birth that he ever heard of was childbirth, and he knows he cannot go through that again.






John 3:5



Nicodemus is wondering how he can experience physical birth twice, but this is not what Jesus is talking about. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he must be born of the water and spirit. In other words, Jesus says that your physical existence is not enough. When a person repents, and turns their life over to Christ, that is when they experience the second birth, and it is a spiritual birth, and this is what Jesus is talking about.






John 3:6



Jesus is saying that physical birth gives you a physical body that can function in this world, but receiving Christ gives you spiritual life, so you can function in eternity.






John 3:7



Jesus says it again, you must be born again, and this means everybody. This command crosses all denomination lines. If they do not repent, and ask Jesus to save them, they are Hell bound. Jesus is making it clear to Nicodemus that his formal religion is not enough because you must have a personal relationship with Jesus.






John 3:8



Jesus is saying, you do not have to know every detail about how it works to experience it, or to reap the benefits from it. Just like you do not have to understand every detail of the wind to feel it.






John 3:9,10



A bible teacher like Nicodemus should not have been so puzzled by Jesus’ command, which was that you must be born again. He acted like he had never heard the concept of it, and Jesus said this to Nicodemus because this concept is taught in the Old Testament in Ezekiel 36:26.






John 3:11



Jesus is not just telling Nicodemus what he thinks, and Jesus is not just giving his opinion, instead he is telling him what he knows because he is an eyewitness to every spiritual and every eternal thing that he talks about because he is God.






John 3:12



Jesus talked about being reborn as compared to the wind, and it went over the head of Nicodemus. How was he going to understand things with no earthly illustrations or earthly comparisons? but we just must accept them because God said them. People try to explain the Trinity, but you cannot because there is no earthly explanation for how something can be 3 in 1. When people try, they eventually get off into heresy because either they make God 1 person, or 3 God’s, and both are wrong.






John 3:13



Jesus is saying that no one is qualified to speak of eternal things the way he is. He was in Heaven as God, and he invented the rules, and he left Heaven, and came to earth to tell us what the rules were.






John 3:14



In Numbers 21 the Israelites are between Egypt and the Promised Land, and they are in the wilderness and have been constantly complaining and threatening to stone Moses, and to turn their backs on God, and to go back to Egypt. So, finally God had it with them, so he Judged them. God sent fiery serpents to bite them, the Israelites recognized that they did wrong, and they cried out to God, and repented, and asked for mercy. God graciously heard their prayers, so God had Moses build a bronze snake, and put it on top of a pole, and he told Moses to tell the people who have been bitten that if they obey me and look at the Bronze snake, they will be cured of their snake bite. This was a test of faith, meaning will you believe and obey God even though you do not understand how it works.






John 3:15



Salvation from the snakebite came by looking at the bronze snake. Salvation from eternal Hell comes from trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in his finished work on the cross. In both cases, salvation was a miracle done by the power of God.






John 3:16



This is the perfect definition of love. When God tells you to love your enemies, he is not telling you to have good feelings about them, instead he is telling you to give, meaning to give them kindness, and to give them your prayer, but give. This is what it means to love your enemies. This is an amazing act of love that God showed that he had for us. Even though we grieved him, and hurt him, and pained him, and turned our backs on him, and even though we angered him, and insulted him, he loved us to a greater degree than anyone can possibly imagine. He let the person who he loved more than anybody, his eternal Son, come to earth, and be tortured, and beaten, and mocked, and murdered to pay the penalty for our sins. We do not have to experience the wrath of God because Jesus experienced it for us, instead all that we must do is receive him as Lord and Savior.






John 3:17



Jesus is correcting the Jewish thinking right here, and it was the thinking of Nicodemus and other Jews of that day. The Jews back referred to the Gentiles as the world, and they were also convinced that when their Messiah arrived, one of the things that he would do is condemn the Gentiles and destroy them. Jesus is saying that God did not send me into the world to destroy the Gentiles or condemn them. Instead, God sent me into the world to give them an opportunity to avoid Hell and have eternal life. God only damns people as a final resort, and only after they have rejected all his efforts.






John 3:18



If you have not received Jesus Christ into your life as Lord and Savior, you do not have to wait until Judgement Day because according to what Jesus say here, you are already condemned right now. So, you have already been judged and been damned to Hell. You have until your death to change that by receiving Christ.






John 3:19,20



In the first Chapter of John the bible referred to Jesus as the light and the Word of God as light. Light refers to the written word and the living word. Man loved darkness instead of Jesus. There is no overriding reason that anyone who knows about Jesus does not come to him and receive him. Jesus tells us here that the reason people do not submit to the Lordship of Christ is because they love their sin, and they do not want to change.






John 3:21



A real Christian does not run from the light like an unsaved person who loves to sin. A real Christian wants to be in the light, and wants to be in the word, and wants to be in prayer, meaning that they want to be close to God. They want to be close to God, so God can show them what they are doing that is right, and show them what they are doing that is wrong, to encourage them for the right, and they can change the wrong.






John 3:22



Jesus did not do the baptizing himself, instead his disciples did. It means when they baptized by his command, the reality was that it is Christ doing the baptizing. It is the same today, whether it is baptizing or carrying out any other command of Jesus.






John 3:23,24



When John gets put in prison, it puts an end to his ministry of baptism. John only had so long to do what God called him to do, therefore we must do all what we can for God in the time that he gives us.






John 3:25



The Jews loved all their purification rituals, and most of them are man-made. They are a little disturbed and uncomfortable with John’s baptism and now Jesus. Jesus’s disciples are baptizing, and they are talking to John’s disciples about this, and they are having a debate over it. They are afraid that these Baptismal washings will take the place of the old ones which they practice.






John 3:26



John’s disciples are jealous on behalf of John. They said, Jesus is intruding into your ministry, and people are coming to him instead of you.






John 3:27



John is saying, God has a plan for each one of us who know him. Our job is to be faithful and to do what we know Christ has called us to do, and the rest is not my business, so nobody can receive anything beyond what is given to them.






John 3:28



John is reminding his disciples about what he has always said, which is he is not the important one, but he had to be the voice, and tell everyone that the Messiah was coming.






John 3:29



He is saying that a friend of the bridegroom would not get mad if the bride went home with her groom because that is the way it is that is supposed to be. Jesus gets to have the devotion of the people and that is how it should be, and John was happy about this. The point of John’s ministry was to point people to Jesus Christ.






John 3:30



These are not the words of a radical follower of Jesus Christ. John is just a normal follower of Jesus Christ, and John has made Jesus Christ his Lord. If Jesus is truly your Lord, your goal will be to die to self, more and more, and more and more submit to Christ, and this is normal for a Christian because we want Jesus to increase, and we want to decrease ourselves.






John 3:31



John gives the reason why Jesus must increase and he, John, must decrease. John says that Jesus is above all, meaning that Jesus is God, and Jesus came from Heaven. This is the reason why that in our lives that he must increase, and we must decrease because what he wants is more important than what we want.






John 3:32



When you know that something is a fact, and you tell people about it, and they do not believe you, especially when you have experienced it or seen it, well Jesus knows what this feels like. Jesus knew everything, and he knew that everything he said was true because he was in Heaven before he came to earth, but few believed him when he was here.






John 3:33



When you accept the words of Christ, and those who he inspired to write, meaning his Apostles, you are accepting the word of God.






John 3:34



Jesus Christ did not have a measure of the Holy Spirit working in him when he was here on earth because the spirit was not given by God the Father to Jesus in measure. Jesus was not under the control of the Holy Spirit some of the time, instead every word that Christ spoke was the word of God, and everything that he did 100% of the time was being done by God. Jesus did not just have a measure of God, instead he was all God 100% of the time.






John 3:35



The Father has given all things into Jesus’s hands, and Jesus is all God. As a Christian, God has given you a spiritual gift. He gives all Christians at least one spiritual gift. Christians walk in step with the Holy Spirit sometimes, but Jesus was always in step with the Holy Spirit.






John 3:36



Belief and Obedience go hand in hand, and saving faith and obedience go hand in hand. Jesus gives eternal life to all who obey him, but it is not talking about salvation by works. The Grace that gives the gift of salvation is the same grace that gives the gift of a heart for God, and a desire to obey God, and the power to obey God.






John 4:1



Things were happening just as John had wanted them to happen, meaning that Jesus was increasing, and he was decreasing. The Pharisees did not like John the Baptist, just like they did not like John’s popularity, and now they took notice on how Jesus was becoming more popular.






John 4:2



The Lord Jesus focused on doing what only he could do, so he specialized in preaching and teaching the pure word of God. He delegated the job of baptizing to his disciples.






John 4:3



Christ was not intimidated by the religious leaders, and he avoided confrontation because it was not the time for confrontation yet.






John 4:4



Jesus wanted to go up to Galilee, so he had to pass through Samaria. Pure blooded Jews could not stand the Samaritans, and they would go to great efforts to avoid stepping near Samaria. This all started when there was a war in Israel, and it was divided between the North and the South. The northern part of Israel included the area of Samaria. During the divided Kingdom, the Assyrian Empire came in, and conquered the northern part of Israel, and the Assyrians took most of those people into captivity. The Assyrians came in and populated the northern part of Israel. The Syrians that came in, inner married with the Jews who were left. The worst part was that the religion became a mixture of Judaism and Assyrian Paganism. That continued down until the days of Jesus. This is the reason why pure-blooded Jews could not stand the Samaritans.






John 4:5



Another name for Sychar is Shechem. This is where Jacob and his twelve sons settled when they came back to the Holy Land from being with their Uncle Labon.






John 4:6



Jesus was tired because he had walked a long way. Jesus being tired reminds us that he is not a distant deity, and he is not so far removed from us that he does not understand what we go through. He understands our physical weaknesses because he has been through them all. and Jesus had also experienced temptation like us.






John 4:7



There was a woman minding her own business, and doing her normal routine, and she does not realize that she is about to have an encounter with Almighty God, and that it will change her life forever. Jesus asked her for a drink of water.






John 4:8



All twelve disciples were sent to get food. Jesus had a reason for sending all twelve, and it was because he wanted to have a private conversation with this woman. When Christ does not do things the easy way for us, it is because he has a reason.






John 4:9



The Jews believed that the Samaritans were unclean, so a Jew would not even take a drink of water from a cup that had been handled by a Samaritan because they were afraid that they would be defiled. The standards we should follow are the standards set by God, and not by man.






John 4:10



Jesus said, if you only knew the gift of God. So many people do not know the gift of God which Jesus was offering to this woman. Most people today are too busy to know the gift that God has for them because they are too busy chasing things of the world.






John 4:11



Jesus is offering his water for her soul, but she is still thinking about water for her body. Her mind is so focused on that physical water that the spiritual water that Jesus was talking to her about went over her head. That is what carnal focus will do. A carnal focus scrambles the signal that is coming from God, and makes it impossible for a person to pick up what God wants to say to them. Carnal focus does not necessarily mean sin, but the world. Therefore, praying first before anything is important.






John 4:12



It sounds like she is getting a little defensive with Christ. Jesus said that he could deliver better water than what Jacob did out of his well, her response was, Jacob’s water is good enough for my ancestors, so it is good enough for me. She was shocked that he claimed that he could give her better water.






John 4:13,14



Jesus is saying that the water from this well will satisfy you for a little while, but I will give you water that will satisfy you forever. If you are saved and walking with the Lord, and there are no unconfessed sins in your life, you will not feel like something is missing. Christ satisfies, and he is the living water that he is talking about.






John 4:15



God is a patient teacher, and she is still thinking physical, so she says ok give me some of that water that satisfies for a long time, so I do not have to come back to the well.






John 4:16



Jesus forces her to shift gears by confronting her over what he knows is a sin in her life. She needs to start thinking spiritually and not materialistically.






John 4:17,18



Jesus knew about this woman, and he knew her sins. She had been married 5 times, and now she is guilty of fornication as well. Jesus hit a spiritual nerve with her because he confronted her about the sin that she is guilty of, the word of God has a way of doing that.






John 4:19



Jesus knows exactly what is going on in her life and the sins she is guilty of, God is speaking to her through Christ. He is making her feel very uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that she changes the subject. When spiritual issues make a person uncomfortable, the answer is not to change the subject, but to deal with it.






John 4:20



The Jews said the central place of worship was the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The Samaritans worshipped on a mountain in their area of the country. What she was saying was true, but it did not have anything to do with what Christ was talking about.






John 4:21



In the Old Testament the central place of worship was the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus is saying that the time is coming when those who worship God will not have to go to a special place to worship God, and that time is here, and it has been here since the day of Pentecost, when the church age began.






John 4:22



The Samaritans worshipped a confusing mix of the God of Abraham, and their pagan gods. Jesus says that salvation did not come through your religion because not all religions are equal.






John 4:23



Jesus says, God wants people to worship him in spirit and in truth. This reference to the spirit refers to “The Holy Spirit” which is working inside of us, which causes us to worship God. The Holy Spirit reveals truth, and shows us, among other things, how we are to worship God as Christians. We do not sacrifice animals as Christians in our worship to God because that is not what the Holy Spirit leads the Church to do. We do not do grain offerings like in the Old Testament, and we are not under the law to make a pilgrimage to some place. Instead, it is a natural thing for a Christian to worship Christ. The moment that you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of you. The Holy Spirit in Christians stirs them to worship Jesus Christ.






John 4:24



Worship God in spirit and in truth, meaning to line your life up with the word of truth. When you sin, confess it and move on because trying to worship God while living in sin is not worshipping God in truth.






John 4:25



Jesus is talking about some deep spiritual truths to this woman, and she is having a hard time grasping it. She says that she believes that when the Messiah comes, he will help her to understand, she will know. She is willing to put off her learning until the Messiah comes.






John 4:26



Jesus says, you do not have to wait any longer, or to look any further than me because I am he. Meaning that I am the Messiah, and I have the answers, and Jesus does have all the answers.






John 4:27



It was a religious rule back in those days that a Rabbi could not speak to a woman in public, as well as a social rule. Jesus ignored that rule because it was more important to him to save the woman’s soul. His disciples were shocked to see him talking with a woman, but they did not dare ask.






John 4:28



Notice how she left the water jar, and went into the city, even though that water had meant a lot to her. Jesus tried to talk to her about “Spiritual Water”, but all that she could think about was literal water. So, suddenly she leaves her water pot and goes into the city. It was important to her before, but now it does not mean anything to her, and it is because she met the Son of God, and now everything seems small.






John 4:29



Jesus knew everything that this woman ever did, and she knows it. Jesus Christ knows everything that you and I have ever done, or have said, and he also knows what we wanted to do, but could not or did not do, or say but did not. He knows all this, and still loves us, and he still died for us, and he still wants to have fellowship with us.






John 4:30



The woman went into the city and told these towns people about Jesus, and about what he said to her. They went out to see Jesus for themselves. It is important for people to check out Christ and the word of God for themselves because no one can live off the faith from someone else.






John 4:31



Before the people from the town arrived to see Jesus, the disciples urged Jesus to eat because that is the reason why they went into town.






John 4:32



The Bible says that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Meaning that although we need to be sustained physically by food, more importantly is spiritual nourishment, which comes by spending time with God. One of the needs that man has been born with, is a need to have fellowship with his creator God. Spending time with the Father and doing the work of God is more satisfying than eating when you are hungry. Reaching out to that woman satisfied Jesus more than the food that the disciples brought back.






John 4:33



Jesus is talking spiritual things, and the people listening to him are thinking physical things, just like with Nicodemus and the woman. They were happy to go into town, and get food for Jesus, and now Jesus says that he had other food, so now they are wondering who brought him food.






John 4:34



The thing that satisfies Jesus the most, and the thing that satisfies the appetite of Jesus’s soul, is to do what the Father wants him to do. When we get to do what God wants us to do, like talk to someone about the Lord, or something else for Jesus Christ, we know how satisfying that it can be, and nothing compares to it.






John 4:35



Jesus looks at the Samaritan people as they are coming out of the city to see him. There are a lot of them coming because of the woman’s testimony. Jesus points to them and says, the fields are ripe for harvest, and he is not talking about crops, instead he is talking about the souls of these Samaritans. Their souls were spiritually ripe and ready to be picked and harvested. Just give them the word of God, and they will be harvested for God Almighty. Ripe souls rot in the field if they are not given the word of God, and not given the knowledge of how to be saved.






John 4:36



Jesus is using an illustration from farming. He says that the farmer, or the farmhands that harvest their crops get paid out of it. Jesus’ point is that Christians that give out the word of God or participate in giving out the word of God through prayers and offerings, or in any way that God leads them, are going to enjoy rewards for their work, and great joy in this life, and great satisfaction, plus eternal rewards in the next life.






John 4:37



The Apostolic work of getting out the word of God, which every single Christian is called to play a part in, through prayer and other means, is sometimes done without any apparent results. There are times when you pray like crazy, and you give like crazy, and you give out the word of God like crazy, but you do not see any results. These are times when God is preparing the ground for others to reap a harvest, or maybe even for you to reap a harvest later down the road. So, some sow and some reap.






John 4:38



The disciples are going to enter this great time of harvesting a crop that they did not plant or water. They are going out with their spiritual sickles, and they are going to harvest a big crop. Jesus said that somebody else was out there before you, and they were giving out the word of God, or praying, or doing something like planting a seed. He said you are about to reap a harvest that you did not sow. It does not matter who sows, and who reaps because God rewards faithfulness.






John 4:39



When the woman left Jesus, she had a zeal for Christ, so she went into town and spread the news about Jesus, so look at how God used her zeal. Never cover your zeal for the Lord. Your excitement for the Lord Jesus Christ in your life, are the things which God wants to use in you to plant spiritual seeds, and to harvest souls for Christ.






John 4:40



It was strange that they asked him to stay because the Samaritans and the Jews disliked each other. The Samaritans hated Jews, and it was just as strange that Jesus, as a Jew, accepted. The Lord Jesus Christ breaks down barriers, and he can bridge any gap that man has created. So, when people are focused on Jesus Christ, barriers disappear.






John 4:41



Now, they saw and heard for themselves, and that is the reason why they believed. Sooner or later for someone to be saved, they must check out Christ for themselves.






John 4:42



Jesus spent two days with these Samaritans, and whatever he said was enough to convince them that he was indeed the Savior of the world. Jesus is the only way to be saved from sin and Hell.






John 4:43



Jesus now leaves, and goes to Galilee, and he is not going to his hometown of Nazareth. The last time that he went to Nazareth, they tried to kill him because he claimed to be the Messiah.






John 4:44



In other words, it is hard to minister to people in your own hometown, and especially to members of your own family who need Christ.






John 4:45



Jesus was down in Judea, and he had been down to the Passover, and did miracles down there. There were a lot of people from Galilee that were there, and they saw Jesus do these miracles, and they went back home to Galilee. The whole area was talking about Jesus, so by the time that Jesus arrived in Galilee, they were anxiously waiting for him.






John 4:46



There was an official whose son was sick, and the official was a high-ranking official in king Herod’s court. His sick son was in Cana, and Jesus was in Capernaum. This official comes to Capernaum and leaves his son in Cana.






John 4:47



The official had faith in Christ, but he put limits on Jesus, which he should not have, and he would not have if he would have known Christ. He believed Jesus could heal his son, but he did not believe that Jesus could do it from a distance, and that is the reason why he came to Capernaum to get Christ to go back to Cana with him.






John 4:48



Jesus was not only talking to this official, but to the Jews around him also. The Jews were always looking for signs and wonders for Jesus to prove who he is, even after all the miracles he did. Jesus wants us to have a strong faith in him, and a faith that can be encouraged by miracles is fine, but a faith that is dependent upon miracles is not fine.






John 4:49



He did not believe that Jesus could heal his son unless he was right there with him. He also put another limit on Jesus because he thinks if his son dies, it will be too late for Jesus to help him.






John 4:50



This man’s faith was not what it should have been, but he did not really know Christ well. Jesus honored the faith that he did have, and he taught the man that he can heal somebody from a long distance.






John 4:51-53



It is good that he investigated the works of Jesus Christ by his questions because now he knows it was the healing word of Christ which healed his son, and nothing else because his son was healed the moment Jesus said it. The closer somebody investigates the work of God, the more their faith will be strenged.






John 4:54



The first miracle was the changing of water into wine, and this one done in Cana from Capernaum.






John 5:1



The Feast of the Jews is referring to the Passover. In that day the Passover Feast was known in the world as the National Day of the Jewish people, and it was the predominant feast.






John 5:2-4



Jerusalem was a walled city back in those days, and it had many gates, and this one was called the “Sheep Gate” because the sheep that were used for sacrifice in the Holy Temple were brought in through this gate. Miracles took place at this pool, and every now and God would send an angel to stir this water. The stirring of the water was the divine cue to get into the pool. So, whoever got into the pool first was healed of whatever disease or sickness that they had. The question is not, why only one person? but the question is, why anybody God?






John 5:5



For 38 years this man could not walk, but his faith brought him to this pool, and the hope that someday things would be better.






John 5:6



Jesus asks this man; do you want to be healed? This may seem like a silly question at first, but it is not when you remember that God has given each one of us a free-will, and an opportunity to choose those things that make us happy, or to choose to do the things that do not make us happy. So, Jesus is letting him exercise his free-will.






John 5:7



Jesus asked him if he wanted to be made well, but Jesus never asked him if he wanted to get into the pool. So, he did not answer the Lord’s specific question.






John 5:8-10



This is a double miracle because this man was cured plus he had his strength restored. The religious leaders were nit-picking about carrying his bed on the Sabbath, but they should have been thrilled for this man, and they should have been rejoicing because this man was healed. They also should have admired Jesus for doing this miracle.






John 5:11



Jesus healed this man, so he obeyed Christ when Christ said carry your bed, and if others do not like it, there is nothing that they can do about it. They did not heal him, it was Jesus who healed him, so he is going to obey Christ. If Jesus saves you from Hell, and if you will never go to eternal punishment because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross for you, don’t you think that he deserves our eternal obedience.






John 5:12



These religious leaders cannot get beyond that religious rule which they have, which is man-made anyway. Religious leaders should love God, and love people who love God, and love when God breaks through and does something God-like.






John 5:13



Jesus got lost in the crowd, and this tells us there was not anything special about how Jesus looked.






John 5:14






The health of this man’s body was important, and if it was not, Jesus would not have healed him. Christ reminds him that the health of his soul is important as well, so he tells him “Sin No More”, so that nothing worse happens. Notice how Jesus uses a good healthy referential fear of God to motivate this man to stay away from sin, and this makes this motive correct. It should be used today because sin leaves a mark.






John 5:15



He was not trying to get Jesus into trouble by telling the Jews that it was Jesus, but the man just spoke truth. They were upset at Jesus, but to Jesus it did not matter.






John 5:16



The Jews were strict about the Sabbath, and they had a lot of man-made rules about the Sabbath. The Jews were convinced by doing absolutely nothing on the Sabbath Day, they were imitating God who rested on the Sabbath Day from his work of creation.






John 5:17



It is true that God did not create anything on the 7th day, but he did not sit around doing nothing. If he would have done absolutely nothing on the 7th day, everything he created on the first 6 days would have disintegrated because he holds everything together like it says in the book of Colossians. God never takes a complete day off because he has been busy every day since day 6 by maintaining his creation, just like what Jesus did by healing this man, meaning that he maintained his creation.






John 5:18



Jesus made himself equal with God. People do not have to believe that Jesus is God if they do not want to because we all have free-will, but people cannot say that the Bible does not teach us that Jesus is God. The Jews understood what he was doing, and they understood what heretics throughout the church age do not understand, which is that Jesus claimed to be equal with the Father. Christians are children of God through faith in Jesus Christ, so we are adopted into the family of God. So, Jesus is the Son of God by nature.





John 5:19



Jesus and the Father are one, therefore they were in constant perfect communication, and always moved in perfect harmony. Christ healed that man on the Sabbath Day because that is what the Father wanted to have done on that day.






John 5:20



Jesus the Son did everything the Father did, and no more and no less, which means that the things Jesus did testify to the fact that he is God because Jesus only did the things that God the Father did.






John 5:21



The only one who can give life to something that is lifeless is Almighty God (Deuteronomy 32:39). Jesus is going to raise three people from the dead during his earthly ministry which proves beyond all doubt to anyone who is skeptical that he is God.






John 5:22



This is more proof that Jesus is God. The Father is the only one who could judge with perfect fairness and perfect justice because only God knows our motives as well as our actions. Only God can give a person the right to enter Heaven, and only God can banish an immortal soul to Hell because only God can judge and condemn without error. Jesus said the Father has given all judgement to me, so he is saying, I am God.






John 5:23



If someone is not accepting the Lordship of Jesus Christ in their life, they are not accepting God in their life, which is what Jesus is saying.






John 5:24



Eternal life does not start after you die because if you are a Christian, you have eternal life right now, and if you have repented and received Christ, you have it. If you have received Christ, you will never be condemned, and you will never experience eternal Hell.






John 5:25



This is talking of our resurrection in the future. When we rise, we will hear the voice of Jesus, and he is going to call each one of us by name. Jesus also says that the hour is now, which is talking about the three people which he will raise during his “Earthly Ministry”.






John 5:26,27



If you own something, you have the power to give it to someone else. Jesus owns life, and he is the source of life, so he is the owner of life. Jesus possesses life, and as the eternal judge, he gives it to those who belong to him.






John 5:28,29



By the time that we get to the point where this world as we know it is over, everybody is going to be raised, both the saved and the unsaved, and they will all get new resurrected bodies. Those who were saved by their faith in Christ and proved it by Holy works, will enter a wonderful quality of life. Those who did evil, and had no faith in Christ, and showed it by their lack of good works will also live forever, but they are going to wish that they could die because they will be living forever in Hell.






John 5:30



Jesus, the eternal judge is totally objective and impartial. Christ is the perfect judge because he not only knows our works, but he knows our motives and he judges by the facts. Christ has no favorites.






John 5:31



Jesus is saying, and referring to Deuteronomy 19, where God gave a command concerning courtrooms and legal issues. God made it clear that every fact in a court of Law must be confirmed by at least 2 or 3 witnesses to be valid.






John 5:32



Jesus is saying, he is not the only one who claims that he is God because he has another witness.






John 5:33



The Jewish rulers sent representatives to John the Baptist when he was out baptizing. They asked John if he was the Christ, he said no, but Christ is coming after me. Jesus showed up and John pointed to him and said, there he is, he is the Christ. So, John is the second witness.






John 5:34



Jesus says, I do not need human approval, and I do not need the testimony of man to prove who I am. Jesus said, I tell you that John the Baptist testified concerning me so that you might believe, and so that you might know who I am.






John 5:35



A lot of the people who Jesus was talking to were baptized by John, and they thought that he was the greatest thing in the world, so they respected John. John gave testimony to the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, so John was popular for a while.






John 5:36



The miracles are another witness to the fact that Jesus was God. Jesus did not just pray for people to be healed because everyone that came up to him were healed, so he spoke, and they were healed.






John 5:37



They never heard God’s voice or comprehended his voice, but he spoke three times in an audible voice from Heaven and in the presence of many people. God had said, this is my beloved Son listen to him, in him I am well pleased. So, God the Father was also a witness.






John 5:38



This is the key, meaning that they did not have the word of God abiding in them, therefore they were rejecting Christ. They did not respect and honor the word of God, and if they would have had proper regard for the Holy Scriptures and for the voice which came from Heaven, they would have gladly embraced Christ because the word of God was pointing to him.






John 5:39,40



They read the scriptures, and they knew what the bible said, but they evidently read it for the wrong reasons. They thought that just by reading the word of God, and by knowing the Law of God, and the word of God, it would earn them eternal life. They failed to grasp the spirit of the word of God. They did not grasp the fact that the word of God pointed to Jesus Christ, so if they would have recognized that, they would have welcomed Jesus.






John 5:41



Jesus is saying that he is not interested in being a celebrity, or becoming popular, or having the approval of any man. Having honor from men did not impress Christ because he only cared about saving souls and pleasing God.






John 5:42



Jesus tells these Jews that they do not have the love of God inside of them. The bible says that the carnal mind is an enemy of God. An unsaved person is an enemy in their mind toward God. Men are by nature God’s enemies; they are haters of God, and they prove it by their actions. They stay away from God until God’s grace changes them through Jesus Christ. The people Jesus is talking to are God haters.






John 5:43



Jesus is saying that the Jews rejected the real Messiah. The Israelites have a history of showing that they are ready to embrace false messiah’s because they think that the false messiah can offer them peace, and safety, and prosperity, and they will do it again when the Anti-Christ shows up.






John 5:44



They were the opposite of Christ in their attitude. Jesus did not care about pleasing men or receiving honor from people, but these leaders lived for that. They wanted praise from people more than they wanted praise from God, and they wanted to be popular and famous and something special. You cannot be a big shot, and still be right with God. Instead, you must approach God as a spiritual beggar with nothing to offer him.






John 5:45



These religious leaders were accusing Jesus of falsely breaking the Sabbath, and he could accuse them right back if he wanted to. He could accuse them of breaking the Spirit of God’s Law and the letter of God’s Law because they were guilty of breaking both, but he is not going to do that. He says that he does not have to because the written word of God already does. Our judge will be the written word of God.






John 5:46



The Jews used Moses in a twisted way. They used his writings, which God inspired him to write, to denounce Christ. Moses would not be happy to hear that these religious leaders used him to denounce Christ because the Lord Jesus Christ is Moses’s God, and his Lord and Savior, and his friend.






John 5:47



They claimed to have such high regards for Moses and the scriptures which Moses wrote. If they will not believe what Moses wrote concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, they sure will not believe what Jesus says about himself. It comes down to this, do you believe the writings?



The Five Thousand Fed:



John 6:1



The Sea of Galilee is up north in Israel. In Jesus’s time, there were many cities that were built around the Sea of Galilee. Many times, Jesus used the beaches in these cities as his church.






John 6:2



These people all followed and gathered around Jesus, but not because he cares about them, and not because he helped them. They were looking for the physical handout which he was giving them.






John 6:3



Jesus got away from the crowd to be alone with his disciples partly for privacy, and partly for rest.






John 6:4



Jesus would start talking about Passover about 30 days before it arrived. When it was about 15 days away, they would say that it is at hand, or “nigh”.






John 6:5



There are thousands of people there, and Jesus just asked Philip, how are we going to feed all these people? Philip was sitting there like a child in a classroom who did not have the answer to a question which the teacher asked.






John 6:6



Jesus already knew the answer to his question because he was only asking Philip to see if Philip knew the answer.






John 6:7



Philip’s answer at best was, I do not know, and at worst, his answer was, it is hopeless. Philip said that with the 8 months’ worth of wages that we have, they might each get a little crumb. It is possible to become so focused on our problems that we forget that we have a God who can do absolutely anything, and who will always do what needs to be done.






John 6:8,9



Andrew speaks up and says, we have 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, but why did I bring it up because it does not matter because that will not be enough? Basically, Andrew was saying, we do not have what it takes. God wants us to know that we do not have what it takes, so that we can draw closer to him.






John 6:10



A lot of grass would mean springtime in that part of the world, and that would go along with the fact that Passover was coming up.






John 6:11



Thousands of people were fed with the 5 loaves and 2 fish, and they were not just fed a little bit, but they were fed as much as they wanted. The lesson for us is that when you run into trouble, meet those challenges with whatever resources you have that God has given you even if it does not appear to be enough because Christ will supply what is lacking. Dedicate what you have to the service of Christ, even if you do not think it is much because it is the right thing to do. Do not trust in what you have, instead trust in Almighty God.






John 6:12



Material possessions are from God, and for that reason, they should not be wasted. Just because we trust in God, and we know that he will supply, wasting what he gives us is not trusting in him, instead that is putting God to the test, and that is not faith, that is presumption. This is the reason why Jesus tells is his disciples to gather up what is left because Jesus does not want anything to go to waste.






John 6:13



There were a lot of leftovers, and we know from other Gospel accounts that it was the disciples who picked up the leftovers. They were important in Jesus’s ministry, but they saw themselves as servants of the people, and they were willing to do what Jesus asked them to do. Whatever it may be that God has gifted you to do, be content to do it in service to others.






John 6:14



The ancient Jews understood that there was a special prophet that Moses spoke about in Deuteronomy 18. Some believed that the prophet was going to be the Messiah, and this big crowd believed that Jesus was the Messiah which Moses spoke about that would come.






John 6:15



They could not understand why he left. They thought this was the Lord’s choice, and they were going to anoint him and make him King right there on the spot. Their idea of a King Messiah was somebody who would meet all their physical needs, and deliver them from Rome. Jesus knew that in their heart that this crowd was not interested in submitting to the Lordship of Christ. They were not interested in repentance or making Christ the Lord of their lives. Jesus was also on a mission to die for the sins of the world, and he is not letting anything distract him from that.






John 6:16



Jesus and his disciples were up on a mountain, so now he sends his men down the mountain ahead of himself to the sea.






John 6:17



Here, Jesus is still up on the mountain, and he sent the disciples down to the sea and they wait. They thought that Jesus was going to join them, but he never showed up and it was getting dark, and they want to cross the sea before it gets too late, so they hop into the boat, and they set sail by themselves.






John 6:18



When they first took off, it looked safe, but that did not last long. Storms blow up quickly on the Sea of Galilee, and they can be rough. So, now they are in the middle of the sea, in the dark, and in a terrible storm, and Jesus is not with them.






John 6:19



They were frightened because they did not know that it was Jesus. They knew it was not a dream because they were all seeing him. They thought it was a phantom, meaning a water spirit. In other words, a demon in human form coming to get them because that is what they believed back in those days.






John 6:20



Jesus knew that they were afraid, so he talked to them, and it calmed them down. God’s voice is the thing that comforts his people, and it is the word of God that comforts his people even when you have no reason to feel comfortable. Prayerfully reading God’s word calms you down during turbulent times.






John 6:21



This was a double miracle, and Jesus’ walking on water was miracle number one, and when Jesus got into the boat, and them being at their destination somehow, was miracle number two. So, God raptured that boat to the shore as soon as Jesus got into it.






John 6:22



The people who Jesus had fed, saw the disciples come down from the mountain, and get into the only boat that was on the shore, and saw them cross the sea. They never saw Jesus come down from the mountain, so they thought that he was still up there.






John 6:23,24



They waited, and they waited, but Jesus never came down from the mountain, so they went up and checked it out, and they saw that Jesus was nowhere to be found. They thought he must have come down in the middle of the night, and found a boat somewhere, and crossed the sea, so they get into these boats and cross the sea looking for Jesus.






John 6:25



They want to know when Jesus crossed because they did not see it happen, and they also wanted to know how he had crossed, since there were no other boats, but Jesus did not answer these questions.






John 6:26



Jesus got right down to the heart of the issue because he knew what was on their minds. Jesus created free food for them the night before, and now since it is time for breakfast, they are coming to look for Jesus, and they want food. Many people seek Jesus for what he can give them in this world, but few people, even Christians, seek Jesus just because of who he is.






John 6:27



Jesus says do not work for the food that perishes, and like many people, this is what these people are doing. Meaning that most people put most of their time and energy into getting things that will satisfy them and their present body, and that can be useful for this world. Jesus is saying, not that all of that is wrong, but that it is not as important as working for those things that will benefit your immortal soul, and your life in eternity.






John 6:28



This is an important question which they asked, which was, what kind of works does God approve of? and this was their question to Jesus.






John 6:29



Nothing that anyone can do is more pleasing to God than for them to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Savior of the world. This is the work of God, so believe on him who has been sent. If someone truly believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that will lead to repentance and making Jesus Lord and Savior of their life. If you really believe something, it leads to action, otherwise it is unbelief.






John 6:30



They should come right out and say what they are thinking instead of trying to cover it with, give us a sign so that we know you are who you say you are. What they are thinking is, we are hungry, so make us breakfast, and we will say that we believe in you, at least until lunch, but we will need another sign.






John 6:31



In other words, they were saying, Jesus, you fed us one meal and that was nice, but the Israelites got 40 years’ worth of food when they traveled in the wilderness. Translation: we want breakfast Jesus because the only thing on their minds is food.






John 6:32



Jesus had to straighten them out concerning this, Manna. Jesus says, first, Moses is not the one who gave it to the Israelites, God did, and second, that bread which they ate for 40 years was not the true bread, instead it was a foreshadowing of the true bread.






John 6:33



The bread of God is a person, and he is not a thing, but it is Jesus, so Jesus is talking about himself. Jesus says, the true bread that comes down from Heaven which I offer you gives life, but not just for the body. This true bread gives life for the soul, and it is for the world, and not just for the Israelites.






John 6:34



They are still thinking about literal bread, and they are thinking, yippee, we are going to get more than before.






John 6:35



In other words, if you repent and you receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, he satisfies, but no one should come to Christ to be primarily satisfied. When you come to Christ, you must come to him knowing you are a sinner in need of eternal life, and in need of God’s mercy, and in need of the salvation, which Jesus provides. When we live for Jesus, the peace and the satisfaction come because of that.






John 6:36



Jesus told them that the” Bread of Life”, which he gives, satisfies, and these Jews said that they wanted some of that bread. But since they are not believing in him, and since they will not believe in him, and since they refuse to receive him as the Son of God and their Messiah, he cannot give it to them. They wanted the bread, but not under his conditions. Like today, people want forgiveness of sin, and they want eternal life, and they do not want to go to Hell, and they want a home in heaven, but they will not receive him as Lord and Savior on his terms.






John 6:37



Jesus is the Father’s gift to us who receive Christ into our lives as Lord and Savior, and get saved. We are the Father’s gift to Jesus. No one should think that they cannot come to Christ for forgiveness and eternal life.






John 6:38



Every single person who comes to Christ seeking forgiveness and eternal life are the Father’s gift to Jesus. Since Jesus is here to do his Father’s will, there is no way that he will reject anybody who comes to him.






John 6:39,40



Anybody who has the type of faith in Christ that leads them to ask Jesus Christ to save their soul, and to be their Lord and wash away their sins, are saved. They are not only saved, but they are secure. It is the Father’s wish for every Christian to be raised on the last day, and nothing will stop Christ from doing that for the Father. If you are a Christian, you are coming back in a new and improved body because this is how the Father wants it to be.






John 6:41



These Jews were not ready to receive Christ because they did not believe in him. When Jesus claimed to be someone who came down from Heaven, they complained about it, and they knew that he was claiming to be more than a prophet.






John 6:42



They said, we know his dad Joseph, so how can he say he came down from Heaven? Well, they were half right because Joseph did fulfill the role of a dad to Jesus, but they were wrong to say Joseph was his Father. The bible clearly says the Holy Spirit is the one that caused Mary to conceive, so Jesus is the Son of God, and not Joseph.






John 6:43



They were not talking to Jesus, or murmuring directly at Jesus, instead they were talking about him, and he knew it, and he knew it was not good. They were murmuring about the things that he had said, and Jesus told them to stop. The more truth that a person rejects, the harder it is to accept that truth later.






John 6:44



Jesus is saying, unless God works in a sinner’s soul and in their life, that sinner can never possibly realize the tremendous guilt that they have before God. They will never realize that they need to turn to Jesus Christ because he is the only way to Heaven. It takes the word of God, and that is the reason why it is important to give out the “Pure word of God” because if the word is watered down, the word cannot draw people.






John 6:45



God speaks to lost souls through the Holy Scriptures, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Those who take the time to listen, and choose to believe what God says, are the one who come to Christ for eternal life.






John 6:46



The fact that people are taught by God does not mean that they have seen God because you do not have to see God to be taught by God. The Holy Spirit, who is invisible, is the one who convinces people, who want truth, that the Holy Scriptures are truth, and that Jesus is the only way to Heaven.






John 6:47



This teaches salvation is not earned by works. or by being a church member, or any rituals, or any good deed. We are saved by our faith in what Jesus did on the cross.






John 6:48



The “Bread of Life” that Jesus is talking about means the bread that gives life to those who consume it. Jesus gives life to the people who invite him into their life, and he is not talking about physical life, instead he is talking of “Everlasting Life”.






John 6:49



The Jews were making a big deal about the Manna which fed the Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years. It was good, and it served a purpose, which was to keep the Israelites physically going for 40 years, but it did not give them everlasting life.






John 6:50



Jesus is referring to himself as the bread which comes down from Heaven. If a person believes in Christ, they are going to receive him into their life, and if they receive him, they will never experience eternal death. Receive Christ, and receive the bread of life, and receive eternal life.






John 6:51



Jesus is talking about his sacrificial death on the cross, which is going to pay for the sins of man. If he does not do this, meaning that if Jesus does not go to the cross to pay for our sins, believing in him will not do anybody any good. Jesus’s death on the cross is like the oven that makes him the bread of life for everybody who will receive him.






John 6:52



They are thinking in literal terms because they are thinking that he is going to give us his flesh to eat, and wondering, how can he do that? They do not understand that Jesus is using physical examples, like his body, to teach spiritual truth.






John 6:53



Jesus is not talking about Holy Communion. Rituals can never be a substitute for repentance and faith, and they cannot be a substitute for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This does not mean that the Communion is bad, not at all because Holy Communion is important, and the early church met for Communion, and for Fellowship, and for the Word of God. Here. Jesus is not talking about Communion because, again, rituals cannot be a substitute for a personal relationship with God, and repentance and faith. Instead, Jesus is saying that when you receive him as Lord, and trust in his work on the cross, so that is when you receive the benefits of the cross.






John 6:54



If you trust in Jesus’s work on the cross, and if believe in Christ, you have eternal life because salvation is by faith. Verse 47 talks of ‘believing on him”, and this is not a verse about Communion. He is saying, “whosoever believeth on him and whosoever eateth his flesh and drinketh his blood” is the same thing. Eating his flesh and drinking his blood is a figurative way of saying verse 47.






John 6:55



It is real food, and it is real drink, and it is satisfying, so it is eternal food for the soul.






John 6:56



When you eat regular bread, that bread lives in you in the same way that when you invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior, so Jesus lives in you, literally.






John 6:57



Jesus said that he lived because of the Father. As a man, God the Father was the center of all that Christ did, so he lived for the Father. Jesus is saying, as a Christian, Jesus should be the center of all we do. If a Christian is not living with Jesus at the center of everything that they are doing, there is something wrong with their faith.






John 6:58



This summarizes everything that Christ has said so far in this chapter: The manna had temporary value, but Jesus Christ is spiritual food from God the Father, and he gives eternal life to everybody who will receive him.






John 6:59



The crowd from the mountain followed Jesus to the city of Capernaum, and there they found him in the synagogue. This is where he is delivering this message on “The Bread of Life”.






John 6:60



They still have not gotten beyond the subject of this message. They are saying that it is distasteful because they think they understand, but they do not. They are saying, who can sit here and listen to this offensive talk?






John 6:61



The murmuring was not from the “12” disciples, instead it was from the crowd, and they are calling themselves his disciples, and this refers to them, and not the “12”. They did not like to hear Jesus say that he came down from Heaven, or that people needed to eat his flesh, or drink his blood, so they are murmuring about those things.






John 6:62



This crowd did not like Jesus saying that he had descended here from Heaven. Jesus is saying that if you stick around until the end, you are going to see me ascend back into Heaven, and maybe your views about me will change.






John 6:63



Jesus says the flesh counts for nothing, and that he is not speaking of his real flesh, or meat, or blood. Eating his literal body counts for nothing, and it cannot save them. His words are Spirit, and salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit when someone receives him.






John 6:64



It is not that some of these people could not believe, but it is that they would not believe in Christ. Jesus did not speak some sort of coded language, instead he spoke the plain simple and clear truth, which was easy for anybody to understand. God has given everyone the ability to receive truth, so those who hear the truth, and do not receive the truth, choose not to.






John 6:65



With those words, Jesus has just insulted the pride of man, which thinks that they are good enough somehow to earn salvation on their own. Jesus is saying, anything good that we are, or do, is a gift of God’s grace, including the willingness to want to come to Christ.






John 6:66



These disciples who called themselves disciples were never disciples to begin with. Jesus lost thousands of people that day with one sermon. They were never true believers because they had followed him in a superficial way for a short time. They did not follow him because they appreciated who he really is, which is the Holy Son of God. If you stop following Christ, it proves that you never were a Christian to begin with (1 John 2:19), so those people never had a true conversion.






John 6:67



The “12” were the only ones left standing there, so Jesus asked them if they were leaving too? Christ really knew how to empty a church.






John 6:68



Peter speaks up and says, if we leave you, we are damning ourselves to Hell, and he thinks he is speaking for everyone.






John 6:69



Peter thought that he was speaking on behalf of the 12 disciples, and he says, we know that you are the Holy one of God, and that is the reason why we are not going to leave you. Anyone who would walk away from Christ, and no longer call themselves Christians, never believed in him to begin with.






John 6:70



Peter claimed to be speaking for all 12 of the disciples, but Jesus is correcting Peter here, meaning that Jesus gave him a little bit of a rebuke. Peter should not have been so confident that all 12 are true believers because Jesus says that one of you is a devil.






John 6:71



Jesus knew that Judas was going to betray him long before Judas himself knew.






John 7:1



Several months have passed between chapters six and seven. Jesus stayed up north in the northern region of Galilee during those several months because the Jews down south near Jerusalem were trying to kill him, and he knew it.






John 7:2



The Feast of Tabernacles came at harvest time, and it was a joyous occasion, and it was a happy holiday. It served to remind the Israelites that one day their Messiah would be on the throne of Israel ruling and reigning, and that a saved Nation of Israel would enjoy peace and prosperity.






John 7:3



It says that these men were Jesus’s brothers, but it does not mean they were his literal brothers, so it could mean that they were his cousins. The point is that they were blood relatives of Jesus, but they were not believers in Christ, so they were not saved. They told Jesus to go to Jerusalem even though they knew the Jewish rulers were out to kill him. They told him to go to Jerusalem, and to do some miracles, as you can see his brothers did not like him.






John 7:4



They were misunderstanding Christ because they thought that Jesus did miracles to become famous. The reality was that Jesus downplayed his miracles, and he did his miracles because he was compassionate, and he did his miracles to confirm his word. They told him, here is your big chance, so go do your miracles in Jerusalem, where there will be big crowds.






John 7:5



His blood relatives did not believe in him, but his mother believed in him. She knew that he was the Son of God before anyone else did. His brothers did not believe her testimony about her son.






John 7:6



Every second of Jesus’s life was operated on a prearranged schedule, and it was not his schedule, instead it was The Father’s schedule, and he followed it perfectly. His brothers did not care about God; therefore, Jesus told them they could go anytime that they wanted to.






John 7:7



Jesus is talking to his unsaved brothers, and he tells them that the world does not hate you. The world refers to this system which unsaved man has built which excludes God, and which excludes the Son of God, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. The system includes cultural, art, and entertainment, and even religion. Jesus is telling them that the world system does not hate you, but it hates me. The reason that it hates Jesus is the same reason that it will not like you if you are saved, and filled with the Holy Spirit, and living for God. It hated Jesus because he showed them that they were living wrong, and they did not like that.






John 7:8



Jesus tells his brothers to go to that religious festival, and so they go. Man loves religious routine rituals, even unsaved men because they can observe them, and they can feel religious without ever repenting, and without ever having a heart for God. For the unsaved, it is a substitute for a relationship with God.






John 7:9



Jesus remained in Galilee until his Father told him that it was time to go.






John 7:10



Sometime after his brothers left, Jesus himself goes down to the feast, but in secret. Jesus would not miss that religious feast for anything, but he did not want to cause any trouble. Jesus did not go when his brothers went because his time arrived after they left. That is how it is with God’s will, meaning that sometimes he does not give advanced notice.






John 7:11



These Jews were most likely the religious leaders, and they wanted to find Jesus, so that they could kill him.






John 7:12



There is a lot of talk about Christ, and the people were divided on him. Meaning that some were for him, and some were against him.






John 7:13



The Jews religious leaders had the common people intimidated. These religious leaders were themselves intimidated by Christ. They did not like Christ, and they would intimidate anyone who would dare to follow Christ.






John 7:14



After about three days, people went looking for Jesus, but they could not find him, and they were wondering where he was, and if he would show up. Jesus showed up, and immediately started teaching in the temple.






John 7:15



This does not mean that Christ never did any studying at all, but it is talking about Christ not attending any of the great religious schools of the day. Jesus did not have any of that formal education that the Scribes and the Pharisees had. They marveled at his teaching, and even a couple of his enemies said, no man had ever spoke like this.






John 7:16



Everybody was marveling at Jesus’s great ability to teach, and at what he was saying, but Christ did not take any of the credit for any of his teaching. Jesus passed all the credit onto the Father, and to the word of God, and that is where the power is. Jesus was saying, I am just saying what the Father is telling me to say. Even today the power is in the word of God, and not in the person who is speaking it. Someone who is yelling their sermon out, takes attention off the word, and this is the reason why Jesus never screamed when he preached, (Isaiah 42:2). Jesus taught the word of God with authority, and he spoke it clearly, and simply because he did not scream it.






John 7:17



You need a willingness to obey God’s word before you can get discernment as to what the word of God means. Some people who do not understand the word of God do not understand it because they have no heart to obey the word of God. If a person really wants truth, they must have a heart to obey the word.






John 7:18



Jesus had no personal agenda when he taught the word of God because his motives were pure and simple. All that he wanted to do was get out the pure word of God, and because his motives are pure, his teaching is pure. When a person has pure motives, and they just want to give out the truth, the message will be pure.






John 7:19



The religious leaders gloried in the fact that God gave the Nation of Israel the Mosaic Law. They gloried in the fact that they possessed the word of God. They forgot that possessing the word of God does not do any good if you are not obeying it, and this is the reason why Jesus rebuked these people. They not only did not obey the word of God, but they were plotting the sin of murder against the Son of God, and Jesus knew it, and Jesus confronted them, so he is exposing their sin.






John 7:20



They told Jesus that he had a demon, and they are acting as if they do not know what he is talking about, but they do. They were confronted with their sin, but they would not confess it.






John 7:21



This one deed that Christ is talking about, is healing the man by the pool on the Sabbath. The religious leaders were not marveling at the miracle, but on the fact that Jesus would dare do it on the Sabbath Day.






John 7:22,23



Jesus is going to make a point. God commanded baby boys to be circumcised on day eight, even if day eight fell on the Sabbath, and the Jews would circumcise them because it was being obedient to God’s word, so they broke the Sabbath to do it. Jesus’s point to these religious leaders is that God’s law allows for obedience on the Sabbath. God’s Law allowed for necessary works to be done on the Sabbath. Jesus is saying that God’s Law also allows for works of mercy to be done on the Sabbath, and the reason is because mercy is necessary works, and mercy is a command by God. He is reminding them that they obeyed the command of circumcision on the Sabbath, so he has the right to show mercy on the Sabbath.






John 7:24



Simple human nature is for people to think what I do is ok, but what you do is unacceptable. The religious leaders judged by what they felt was right in their eyes, or what seemed to be right on the outside. Jesus says to judge on according to what is true, and not what you think, or what you want to think is true.






John 7:25



Notice how the secret of the religious leaders was exposed. It was well known around the whole city of Jerusalem as to what they wanted to do.






John 7:26



The people in Jerusalem were starting to think that if the rulers hate Christ so much, and if they are trying to keep him from teaching by killing him, and he is out in public teaching every day, maybe the rulers now believe that he is Christ.






John 7:27



They are saying that when the Christ appears, they will not know where he comes from, but this idea is nowhere in scripture. The bible clearly says that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem, and this shows how important the word of God is. The only way to know what is of God is to study the scriptures because the Holy Bible sharpens our spiritual senses.






John 7:28



They knew that Jesus was Jesus of Nazareth, but what they did not know was that Jesus was God, and that he came from God. If they would have known God instead of just knowing of God, they would have recognized Jesus.






John 7:29



Jesus says I come from him, meaning that he came from God. Coming from God includes being sent by God, and it does not just mean that he was sent from God, but it also means that he was with God in eternity past, and that they have been together forever.






John 7:30



They wanted to arrest Christ, and they tried to grab him, but they could not do it because God would not let them. When the time is right for Jesus to be offered on the cross for the sins of the world, God will allow them to arrest him.






John 7:31



The regular people had more spiritual sense than the leaders did because they could look at Christ, and they could see that he was who he said he was. They were saying, what more could Jesus possibly do to prove that he is the Messiah, and if this is not the real Messiah, what will the real Messiah look like?






John 7:32



The Pharisees hear what the people are saying, and it is worrying them. They are afraid that there is going to be a Jesus movement, so they are now anxious to arrest Christ.






John 7:33



Jesus is reminding the people who he is talking to, including the officers sent to arrest him, that he will not be with them much longer because soon he will return to the God who sent him there. The enemies of Christ, who knew what he was talking about, became angrier.






John 7:34



Jesus says, to these religious leaders, you will seek me, and you will not find me. On Judgement Day. these religious leaders who rejected Christ will be looking for a savior, but they will not find him because it will be too late.






John 7:35



These Jews did not get it, meaning that they did not understand what Jesus was talking about when he said that he was leaving. They did not understand that he meant that he was going to Heaven. They thought that he was leaving Israel to minister to the people on the outskirts of Israel.






John 7:36



They were saying, where could he be going that we cannot follow? so they were puzzled, and the answer was Heaven. The reason that they could not follow is because they are rejecting him as their Lord and Savior.






John 7:37,38



“Living water” refers to the good things that the Holy Spirit provides in saved people. If a person is saved, they have the Holy Spirit, and if they have the Holy Spirit, Holiness, and Joy, and Peace, and Goodness will be in them, and will flow out of them as well. Therefore, “living water” in this verse refers to all those fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22,23).






John 7:39



Jesus was raised from the dead 3 days after he was crucified, and Jesus ascended into Heaven 40 days after he was raised, and he was glorified, and 10 days after Jesus ascended into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit (his Spirit) to live inside of those who had received him. Since this time, every single person who receives the Lord Jesus Christ, receives the Holy Spirit at the same time.






John 7:40,41



There was a lot of confusion among the people concerning Christ because some believed, and some did not believe. Some would have believed if they had known that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and not up in Nazareth, or in Galilee where he was raised. This fact seemed to hold some people back from believing it.






John 7:42



They were correct when they said that the Christ is a descendant of David and born in Bethlehem. If they would have done a little research, or simply asked Jesus if these things were true of him, rather than assume these things were not true, they would have found out that these things were true of Jesus. God expects us to search for truth.






John 7:43



The people were divided over Jesus because they were ignorant over Christ, and of the scriptures. People are divided today in their opinion of Christ, and it does not have to be that way. A simple solution is to not go by what you feel, or by what you think, or by what someone else has told you. The Holy Scriptures are where you find all the information about Jesus that we need to know, and the Holy Scriptures are crystal clear concerning Jesus.






John 7:44



“But no man laid hands on him”. The religious rulers sent officers to arrest Jesus, but because his time to die had not yet come, no one was able to harm Christ. It is the same with us, meaning that you cannot die until your time comes, and the bible talks about our days being numbered (Job 14:5, Matthew 6:27) by God. The bible talks about the wicked not living out half their days (Psalm 55:23). So, our days are numbered and predetermined by God, so if we are his “Children”, we cannot go until the time has come.






John 7:45



The officers who were sent by the Pharisees to arrest Christ returned to the religious leaders, and to the Chief Priest empty handed. These leaders are clearly annoyed because these officers did not arrest Jesus.






John 7:46



These officers were amazed and impressed with Christ, and with his words to arrest him, and this was coming from the mouth of an unbeliever. That unbelieving officer who spoke those words never would have dreamed that Christians would be quoting his words for 2000 years.






John 7:47



These officers come back, and they just report the truth, and the Pharisees get ugly with them for saying what they said. The Pharisees asked these officers if they were fooled too. The truth is that the Pharisees are the ones who are fooled, and all those who have heard the truth of Jesus Christ, but who have rejected the truth of Jesus Christ, are the ones who are fooled by Satan.






John 7:48



This is a pathetic argument because they are saying that the people should not believe in Christ because the hypocritical Pharisees do not believe in him.






John 7:49



The Pharisees are saying that the crowd that is following Jesus are cursed, but it is the Pharisees that are cursed, and not the people who are smart enough and humble enough to recognize the God who made them.






John 7:50,51



Nicodemus was a religious ruler like the rest of these men, but Nicodemus was different because he was a sane voice in the middle of these warped leaders. He told them that they had not given Jesus a fair chance, and he was dead right when he said this. God’s Law is clear on this because you do not judge a man before you hear his case, and we have not heard his case, and we have not given him a fair chance. The other rulers did not want to hear his case because they were afraid of the truth.






John 7:52



The other Pharisees insulted Nicodemus because they thought that Nicodemus was ok if he stayed quiet. When he spoke the truth, they did not like him anymore, and they turned on him. They asked him if he was also a follower from Galilee, and they were being sarcastic, and this was an insult. Calling someone a Galilean back in those days was considered an insult. They are wrong about saying that no prophet will come from Galilee because Jonah came from Galilee, and yet they considered themselves Bible Scholars.






John 7:53



The feast was over, so the people returned home, and now some believe in Jesus, but sadly most did not. The rulers now want him dead more than ever.






John 8:1



Jesus did not have a house, so he went to the Mount of Olives to camp out. We should be thankful for whatever home God gives us.






John 8:2



The Mount of Olives was just outside of Jerusalem. Early the next morning Jesus climbs the hill to the city of Jerusalem, and he returns to the Temple to continue his teaching.






John 8:3



The sin and the crime of adultery was so rampant in those days, that they no longer enforced the laws against it. This is what makes it strange that the religious rulers are making a big deal out of this case because why all of a of a sudden do they care?






John 8:4



These religious rulers bring this woman, and throw her to the ground right in front of Jesus. She is guilty, but where is the man? because it takes two to commit adultery. If she was caught in the act, this means that he was caught in the act also. The question is, why did they not drag him out in front of Jesus and the crowd? and the answer is because it was a set-up.






John 8:5



The law of Moses would say to stone her, but they knew Christ to be compassionate. The rulers hope that Christ lets her go, so that they can accuse him of breaking God’s Law just like she broke God’s Law. The rulers want to say that Jesus is soft on sin, so they can claim that if he is the Christ, why is he soft on sin?






John 8:6



People are always trying to figure out what Jesus wrote on the ground, but since it does not say what he wrote, it is not important for us to know. The act of not responding to their question and busying himself with making marks and writing in the sand says a lot by itself. It says, I do not respect you hypocritical leaders and your accusations, and I am ignoring you.






John 8:7



It irritated the rulers that Jesus did not respond, but instead Jesus occupied himself with swirling his fingers in the sand. They asked him over and over, what are you going to do about it? Adultery was common back in those days, and these religious rulers were probably guilty of it in one form or another, if not literally, in their minds. They must have been guilty of some sin, or one of them would have thrown the first stone. Christ is showing mercy, but not just to the woman, but he is showing mercy to these men as well. They should be grateful that he is a merciful, and a compassionate God.






John 8:8



Jesus has already said enough to convict these men, but instead of pursuing their sins and publicly embarrassing them, as they were doing with this woman and with Jesus, he gives them the opportunity to walk away, and to think about the things which they have been convicted of.






John 8:9



They are not fit to condemn her unless they will also condemn themselves, so they take their guilty consciences and leave.



John 8:10



Jesus says, do not let any of those men condemn you. Did any of them have a clear enough conscience to throw the first stone at you?






John 8:11



Jesus showed her mercy, and he did not demand that she be stoned to death. Jesus did not execute her, and he did not send her to Hell, but he did not give her a license to sin either, instead he said, “go and sin no more”. Remember, if God holds back his judgement, as he did with this woman, and with the Pharisees, and to us, it is to give people more time to repent, and not more time to sin.






John 8:12



Those who are saved, and who live for the Lord, and who walk humbly with him, will not live-in ignorance, and they will not stumble through this life without a moral compass suffering for their own foolishness. If you put Christ first, he will pour out into you, knowledge, and holiness, and wisdom, so you do not stumble through this life doing all sorts of self-destructive things.






John 8:13



They think that Christ is boasting and lying about himself, so they say, we do not have to believe in you.






John 8:14



Christ is saying, it does not matter what you religious leaders think, and it does not change reality, or what is true. Jesus came from God whether they believe it or not, and Jesus is God whether they believe it or not, and he will return to God.






John 8:15



These religious leaders had poor judgement, and it was tainted, and it was twisted by their feelings, and by their prejudices, and because of this, they were not qualified to judge. Jesus does not mean that he will never judge anyone when he says, “I judge no man”, he is talking about this first time he came because the first time that he came, it was to save. Jesus will judge, and condemn when he returns.






John 8:16



When the time is right for Jesus to judge, he says that he will, but not in a superficial way. The best that people can do is make a surface level judgement, and sometimes that is good enough. When it is time for Jesus to judge, he will judge motives, and thoughts, as well as words and actions.






John 8:17,18



Jesus quotes the Law of Moses, which says that every matter must be established by at least 2 or 3 witnesses, and he is speaking legally. Jesus says, I am one witness, and my Father is the other witness. Jesus is not full of empty boasts, as his enemies are claiming. Jesus testified to the fact that he is the Son of God, but so did the Father. The Father testified that Jesus was his Son by the words of the Old Testament writers that spoke of Jesus, and by the words of John the Baptist who was inspired by God. The Father testified by the miracles which he caused Jesus to do, and he also testified by his audible voice from heaven.






John 8:19



These religious leaders did not know God the Father, and they did not accept the Father. They did not know the Father because they did not know the Son, and they did not accept God the Son. If you accept the Son, you get to know him and the Father.






John 8:20



The religious rulers wanted to arrest Jesus Christ and they wanted to kill him, but they did not because they could not, and they did not know why they could not. It was because his hour had not yet come, meaning that God the Father would not allow it yet.






John 8:21



Soon Jesus will be returning to Heaven, so he is going where they cannot come. These Israelites, who are rejecting him, are going to experience calamity like never before because of their sin against Christ. They will look for a Messiah for help, but he will not be there. They will die in their sin, and they will die because of their sin.






John 8:22



They understand that Jesus was talking about leaving this world, but what a foolish suggestion to say that he was going to kill himself, even though they said it mockingly.



John 8:23



Jesus is not of this world, and he was not created here, and he did not come into existence into this world like everyone else. He was from Heaven, but he came to this world to save even the worst sinners who would turn to him. These Jews would not be among those saved because their hearts were hard, and they were of this world, and not just born here, but they were of a worldly mindset. Jesus also said that they were from below meaning that they are children of the devil. So, they are citizens of Hell before the even get there.






John 8:24



If these people continue to reject Jesus Christ until the day that they die, they will die in their sins. Jesus is saying that there is no plan B for getting your sins removed.






John 8:25



They want to know who Jesus is, to talk the way which he has been talking, and who is he to say that they must follow him or be eternally lost? They were accusing Jesus of being narrow minded.






John 8:26



Jesus could have said many things about these religious rulers, and he could have spent years exposing the sinfulness of their works, and the sinfulness of their attitudes and motives. but he will not because as always Jesus is following the lead of his heavenly Father. Jesus will only say the things that his Father wants him to say.






John 8:27



You can already see, in these unbelieving religious leaders, a darkening of their minds, which is because of their rejection of the truth. If you reject truth, your heart becomes darker and darker, and your mind becomes darker and darker, and you find it harder to recognize truth. Earlier they knew that he was talking of the Father, but not anymore.






John 8:28



Lifting the Son of Man is referring to nailing him to the cross, so Jesus is talking of his crucifixion. Jesus says that after they do this, they will know that he is the Son of God.






John 8:29



Only the sinless Son of God, meaning the Lord Jesus Christ, could say what Jesus said here. Jesus says, I always do what pleases God, and he always did the things that were pleasing to the Father, and all the time.






John 8:30



Jesus spoke the truth because he spoke the pure word of God, and he angered a lot of people because he did not water down the truth. Jesus turned a lot of people off with his words because they were not used to hearing the plain and simple truth of God’s word, but at the same time many were saved. A lot of preachers today water down the word of God to make it less offensive. If you water down the word of God, no one will get offended by it, but no one will get saved by it either, or get set free from their sin.






John 8:31



True disciples continue with Christ; true Christians continue with Christ. In other words, “Saving Faith” is permanent. One mark of a true Christian is that they persevere with Christ.



John 8:32



The whole unsaved world needs to be set free because they are in bondage to their false beliefs which is sending them to Hell. And they will continue to be sent to Hell if they are not set free by the word of God. When you receive Christ, you receive the gift of salvation, and the gift of truth, and it sets you free.






John 8:33



These Jews resented the fact that Jesus was saying that they needed to be set free because it hurt their pride. They said that they have never been in bondage to anyone, and that they did not need to be set free. They had forgotten about all those years when they had been in bondage to Egypt, to the Assyrian Empire, by the Babylonian Empire, and Persia, and Greece, and now the Roman Empire. These people who were rejecting Christ are in bondage to sin, and to Satan, and to wrong beliefs. They do not even recognize that they are in bondage because sin has blinded them.






John 8:34



Sin is the worst kind of bondage. If you commit sin, you are a slave to that sin which you are committing, and you are under sins control. If you live a sinful lifestyle because you have not repented and received Christ, you are totally given over, and in slavery to sin. People who do not receive Christ because they want to be free to do what they want, are not free at all. They are in bondage to rebellion against God, and to the sin which they crave, and they could not quit if they wanted to. The only thing that can set you free is Jesus Christ.






John 8:35



They said they were sons of God, but they were not, instead they were slaves. As a slave, you are not guaranteed a home, but as a son, you are because as a son, you are part of the family, and you belong there. Jesus is trying to tell these Jews that they are slaves of sin, and sons of the devil instead of being sons of God, and they can be put out of their place of privilege which they are in, and they will be put out of it.






John 8:36



When a person receives Christ, they are set free, and they no longer need to be a slave of sin, or of religious legalism, or superstition, or of the Devil. A Christian does not have to carry the weight of those things around because serving Christ is not a form of bondage.






John 8:37



They were physical descendants of Abraham, but they were not Godly men as he was. Abraham welcomed the word of God, and he was willing to obey it, even when it was tough. These men were trying to kill Jesus because he taught the word of God, so they were not like Abraham.






John 8:38



Jesus says, I will tell you what the Father wants me to tell you, and you (the Pharisees) do what your father wants you to do. Jesus represented God the Father well, but unfortunately these religious hypocrites represented their father well also, only their father was the devil.






John 8:39



Physically they were Abraham’s children, but morally they were children of the devil. Jesus is saying, you are not the spiritual children of Abraham because you do not act like him.






John 8:40



Jesus says, I am speaking the truth to you religious leaders because I am speaking the word of God, and for that you are trying to kill me. Abraham did not do that because Abraham was on the side of Holiness.






John 8:41



They are denying the Lord’s accusations that they are sons of the devil. They are saying, we are not guilty of spiritual fornication, and we have been true to God.






John 8:42



It is ridiculous for someone to say, I love God, but to reject Jesus the Son of God, who the Father sent. You reject the Son, you reject the Father.



John 8:43



They did not understand the words of Christ because they had no desire to accept his teachings. A willingness to accept truth is essential if you are going to understand the Holy Scriptures.






John 8:44



Jesus says that the devil is a liar and a murderer, and that he brought death to the entire human race when he tempted Adam and Eve to sin. His temptation included lies about God, and these Pharisees are just like the devil, meaning that they are liars and murderers. Murderers because they are plotting to murder the Son of God, and liars because they are saying that God is their Father. Not everybody is a child of God, instead we become children of God when we receive Christ.






John 8:45



This statement is true for a lot of people because moral reprobates, like these religious leaders, have a twisted approach to the truth. They raise all sorts of ridiculous objections to the truth, but at the same time, they invent reasons to accept non-truth.






John 8:46



Nobody, but the sinless Son of God would dare say this to his enemies. What he is saying is, show me anything that I have ever done that was wrong because Jesus’s actions and motives were always 100% pure.






John 8:47



People who belong to God will hear and obey God’s word because they have a hunger for the Holy Bible because they are saved. Jesus tells these religious leaders that they do not belong to God because they do not hear God’s word, therefore they do not obey it.






John 8:48



The Jews could not respond to the wisdom that Jesus spoke, or to the truth which he spoke, so they came with a personal attack, and they called him a Samaritan. In those days calling someone a Samaritan was considered derogatory, and in those days, it was a racial slur. They also accused him of being demon possessed.






John 8:49



Jesus did not teach the words of a demon and he was not crazy, which the leaders accused him of being. His only goal was to speak the word to bring honor to God. The Jews were not only dishonoring God, but they were dishonoring Jesus because he was honoring God.






John 8:50



Jesus had accused them of dishonoring him, but he wants to make it clear that he does not mean that he was seeking honor for himself. It bothers Christ that they are dishonoring him because in the process, they are dishonoring the Father. Jesus does not seek honor for himself. God the Father seeks honor for God the Son, and God the Father will judge all those who will not give the Son the honor that he deserves.






John 8:51



Jesus is not talking about physical death, instead he is talking about eternal death. Jesus is saying that people who receive Christ will not suffer in Hell, ever.






John 8:52



Now they think that Christ is crazy for sure. They said, Abraham and all the great Old Testament prophets died, and you say that if anybody obeys your word, they will not ever die, and you are of the devil.






John 8:53



These religious leaders say, Abraham and the prophets were all Holy men who lived by faith, and they never delivered anyone from death, but you claim to be able to deliver people from death. Who do you think you are Jesus? That was the was question to him.






John 8:54



The Jews thought that Jesus was talking big, and that he was trying to draw attention to himself, but Jesus said, I am not, and it would be a waste of time anyway. When people try to draw attention to themselves, it usually backfires, and other people can see right through it. They end up looking down on them, instead of looking up to them. The God which these Jews said that they loved and served, is the God that is honoring Christ, and they have known that for about 2000 years.






John 8:55



They wanted Christ to deny that he was equal with the Father, but he would not do it because if he did that, he would be a liar like them.






John 8:56



They liked to talk about their connection to Abraham, so Jesus says, speaking of Abraham, Abraham looked forward to the day I would come into the world, and he longed to see it, and he saw it by faith.






John 8:57



They are putting words into Jesus’s mouth, which so often happens with those who do not listen. Jesus did not say that Abraham saw him, but he meant by faith that he saw this day. Abraham lived for and longed for the coming of the Redeemer.






John 8:58



It would have been remarkable if Jesus would have said that before Abraham was, I was. He did not say that because that could mean there was a time that he came into existence. Jesus said, “I am”, in other words, I have always been and “I am” is God’s name. Jesus is also saying, I am the eternal God.






John 8:59



Jesus claimed to be God and the Jews knew it, that is the reason why they tried to stone him to death. No one should say that Jesus is not God, and that Jesus is just a Godly man, and no one should say that Jesus never claimed to be God.






John 9:1



By telling us that this man was blind from birth, God was emphasizing the hopelessness of his salvation. The bad news is that this man has never seen a single thing in his entire life, but the good news is that Jesus is about to change that.






John 9:2



The disciples did not know who had sinned, but they were sure that someone in the family had sinned, and they thought that God was getting them back by causing this man to be born blind.






John 9:3



All death, and all suffering, and all sickness including this man’s blindness has come into the world because of the sin in this world. However, it is not true that all sickness and suffering are a result of the sufferer’s personal sin because bad things happen in a sin infested world. God allowed this man to be born blind, so that God could display his power by healing him.






John 9:4



Jesus had three short years of public ministry, and he was determined to use every second of it wisely. It is important to squeeze all the living for Christ out of every second that we have.






John 9:5



The Lord’s presence in the world was a light. His miracles, and his teachings, and his Holiness showed a spiritually dark world the right way to be. Christ in us wants to do the same thing for the world today, by living out his Holiness through each one of us.






John 9:6



No one knows why Jesus made mud out of saliva, and God did not tell us why, but we do know that Jesus did not have to make mud out of his saliva to heal this man.






John 9:7



This pool was outside the walls of Jerusalem, so from wherever he was, it was a long walk. It did not make sense to anyone, but whatever Jesus says is always correct. The important thing is to obey the word of God even when it does not make sense to us, and if this man does not obey, he will not be healed.






John 9:8



Blind people usually had a place where they sat and begged, and this man had his spot, and he was like a city landmark. Meaning that people recognized him as the blind man who sat and begged.






John 9:9



The man tries to put an end to the debate of who he is by saying, I am the one who used to be blind. He had to keep saying it because many did not believe him.






John 9:10



Jesus’s miracles often got people talking and asking questions, and that is what is happening here. This man is given a golden opportunity to witness to the goodness, and to the power of Jesus Christ. Whenever something good happens to us, it is God giving us an opportunity to testify to his goodness.






John 9:11



This man stuck to the simple facts, which is the way to witness for Christ. Some people think they need to be Bible scholars or take a class on how to share your faith before they can witness for Christ, but this is not true. It is simple, just tell people what Jesus did for you, meaning to tell them that he saved you from Hell when you received him as Lord and Savior.






John 9:12



After he witnessed for Christ, others wanted to know where Jesus was. If you tell others what Jesus did for you, there will be some who want what you have.






John 9:13,14



The people were excited about Jesus because this miracle was making them excited. They brought the man to the religious leaders, and they were probably expecting the religious leaders to also be excited, but they had never thought that the rulers would resent this man’s healing. The religious leaders were still upset that Jesus healed the cripple man on the Sabbath, and now Christ healed the blind man on the Sabbath.






John 9:15



He did not mention Jesus by name, but by this time, everyone knew that Christ is the one who did the healing.






John 9:16



Some concluded that Jesus was not from God, but their conclusion was wrong. They used their own made-up standards to judge Christ, and not God’s standards. Everyone should be open to correction because none of us are perfect. Make sure the correction can be backed up with scripture, otherwise it is meaningless.






John 9:17



The Pharisees wanted the healed man’s opinion of Jesus. He did not know that Christ was God, but he did figure out that Jesus was from God, therefore he concluded that Jesus was a prophet. His knowledge of Christ was not complete, but he was learning.






John 9:18,19



The Jews were trying hard to discredit this miracle which Jesus did. They were not willing to believe that this was the man who had been born blind. The Pharisees called for his parents to see what they would say, and they are hoping that the parents would say that he is not our son.






John 9:20



They told the Jews what they knew, which is what a witness is supposed to do. They said, he is our son, and yes, he was born blind.






John 9:21



This man told his parents that it was Jesus who healed him, and since they were not there, they did not answer as if they had been. It is important to measure our words carefully, and not to say that we know something is true unless we really know that something is true.






John 9:22,23



The parents were happy to shift the testimony back to their son because saying that it was Jesus would have gotten them kicked out of the synagogue, which is means that they would have been ex-communicated. Ex-communication meant your possessions were taken away, and you lost your job and your business, and you were kicked out of the Jewish religion, which in their minds meant Hell.






John 9:24



These leaders really wanted to discredit this miracle because they wanted to discredit Christ. These religious rulers were reckless with their words, and they said that Jesus was a sinner, and they said that they knew for a fact that he is a sinner. The truth was that they did not know for a fact that Jesus was a sinner because he was not a sinner, and he never sinned in his entire life, instead they were making things up. It is bad when someone speaks an untruth, but it is much worse when a “spiritual leader” speaks an untruth because it can do a lot of damage to a lot of people’s faith.






John 9:25



This man who has been healed by Jesus Christ, is not at all interested in the Pharisees religious interrogations, and all he knows is that he can see, and Jesus Christ is the one that gave him his sight. No matter how hard that they tried, the Pharisees cannot refute the honest testimony of this man, who has experienced this healing, and they cannot deny that a miracle took place.






John 9:26



He just told them what Jesus had done, but now they are asking him again. So, they are either deaf, or they are trying hard to get this man to contradict his previous testimony concerning what happened. They want to discredit him and the miracle, and the Lord Jesus Christ. This man is getting tired of being asked the same question over and over by these Pharisees.






John 9:27



This was a courageous thing for this man to say to these prideful Christ haters. He said, you keep asking me about him, are you interested in becoming his disciples also, so are you interested in following him? You must be because you keep asking me the same question over and over, and they did not like this response.






John 9:28



As far as the religious leaders are concerned, they have been insulted. How could this man even dare to even think that they might possibly be considering becoming one of Jesus’s disciples because it was an insult to them. How dare this man even suggest that the Pharisees, who had opposed Christ, were wrong and now were rethinking their stance on Christ. They said, you are his disciple not us, and they meant this remark as an insult.






John 9:29



They said, we do not know where Jesus is from, even though Jesus has told them many times that the Father has sent him. The miracles that he did prove that he was from God the Father. Even the Father’s audible voice, which spoke from heaven several times in front of many witnesses, had told everybody that Jesus was the Son of God.






John 9:30



He is talking to these haughty religious rulers, and he says that he opened my eyes, and you do not even know where he is from, and you still cannot figure out where he is from.






John 9:31



He was untrained in Biblical Theology, but he was smart enough to know that God does not listen to sinners. He is right because God does not hear the prayers of sinners, and God does not give evil men the power to do wonderful miracles, but Satan does have the power to do lying wonders.






John 9:32



This miracle had never been done before to anybody. No one that had ever been born blind was given sight in a miraculous way, so this man was the first.






John 9:33



This man was just a simple man with no hidden agenda, and he was an average guy who saw truth, and who spoke truth. He cannot figure out how these religious rulers can find fault with somebody who did such a wonderful thing for him. He says that Jesus could not have performed this miracle if he was not from God.






John 9:34



They started to get ugly toward this man, and they were implying that this man was born blind, and that he was guilty of some sin while he was still in his mother’s womb, and given that, what right did he have to teach them. He has every right to teach them because he is speaking the word of God, and they need to hear it. They ex-communicated him from the synagogue because he would not condemn the person who gave him sight. They were making unbiblical demands. Whenever a religion starts making unbiblical demands of you, do not wait to be kicked out, instead you leave.






John 9:35



Jesus went looking for this man after he heard the religious leaders had kicked him out. They did not want him, but Jesus did, and Jesus made it a point to go look for him. If you stand up for Christ, he will stand with you. Let people reject you because you take a stand for what is right and for the Lord Jesus Christ.






John 9:36



This man had received physical vision from the Lord Jesus Christ, and now he is asking for spiritual vision from Christ. He wants to know who the Son of God is, so that he can believe in him.






John 9:37



Jesus says, I am God, and the one who gave this man his sight was not simply a man, but he is God. The one who did the impossible by giving this man sight is the one for whom all things are possible, meaning that he is God, and he is the Son of God, he is Jesus Christ.






John 9:38



As soon as he knew the truth, he believed the truth, and he believed the words that Jesus spoke. He believed Jesus was the Son of God, so he responded by worshipping him.






John 9:39



In other words, those who admit that they need spiritual sight, will have it when they approach the word of God (the Holy Scriptures) with a heart for the Lord. They will receive that sight if they admit they are blind, and if they approach the word of God with a humble attitude. Those who say, I can see just fine, and I do not need the scriptures, and I do not need all this talk about Jesus, are in fact blind, and they will remain blind unless they change their attitude.






John 9:40



The religious rulers say to Jesus, you are not implying that we are spiritually blind also, are you?






John 9:41



Jesus is saying that if they would admit that they were blind, and that they needed a savior because they were sinners, they could be forgiven and would not have any sin. They think that they are righteous, and that is their problem. They think they see fine, and they think they do not need a savior, and therefore their sin remains, as Jesus says. There cannot be forgiveness for anyone unless they first recognize that they are a sinner, and that they need the Lord Jesus Christ to save them.







John 10:1



Jesus is talking about a sheep pen, which is an enclosed area by a fence with one single gate. It is a place where the sheep were kept during the night, and it was guarded by the shepherd. Jesus says that anyone who claims to be a shepherd of the sheep would not act strange around the sheep pen, like climbing over the fence. He is saying that any person that climbs the fence to get at the sheep does not belong there because if they did, he would use the door.






John 10:2



In other words, you would not pry open a locked window to get into your home because you have a key. In the same way, the owner of the sheep goes through the gate because it is his sheep fold, and they are his sheep.






John 10:3



Sheep may not be the smartest animals in the world, but they are smart enough to know the voice of the one who takes care of them. Sheep can discern their shepherds voice, and they follow because they trust him, and they recognize his voice. They do not trust the man who climbed over the fence, so they will not follow him.



John 10:4



A real shepherd does not have to drive his sheep like you would drive cattle. The sheep follow the shepherd because they know that he cares about them, and they recognize his voice, and they know that he provides for them.






John 10:5



The same God given ability that causes a sheep to feel comfortable following their shepherds voice, also causes them to run from the voice of a stranger. Even if a stranger is nice to them, the sheep will not listen because he is not their shepherd.






John 10:6



Jesus spoke these words, and maybe to a whole crowd, and maybe to his disciples, but also to the religious rulers. It says that they did not understand, and they did not understand the voice of the good shepherd, and this was exactly what this whole story was about. They did not understand because they were not the Lord’s sheep because if they would have been his sheep, they would have heard him, and followed him.






John 10:7



God has a flock, and he even has a sheep fold, and Jesus is the door which gets us into God’s flock. Jesus is the door that gets a lost sinner into God’s sheep fold.






John 10:8



There were other people, before and after Jesus, and they claimed to be the Messiah, but they were lying, and that is what Jesus is referring to hear. Those people who had a heart for God, and a real heart for truth did not follow them because there was something strange about what they were saying. God’s sheep did not follow these false messiahs. Those who love truth can be led astray for a little while, depending on how slick the lies are packaged, but those who love truth, and in their heart have a yearning for Almighty God, will not swallow false doctrine, or cult doctrines hook line and sinker, instead they will eventually realize it is false.






John 10:9



Notice, Jesus says “any man”, in other words, the invitation to Heaven is for anyone who wants it. If you enter through Christ, you will be saved, but you must enter through Christ because he is the door, and he is the only entrance. Receive Jesus Christ, and you get off the road to Hell, and on the road to Heaven, meaning that you become one of God’s sheep.






John 10:10



Jesus is talking about false shepherds. He refers to them as thieves because they come to steal, and kill, and to destroy. These are spiritual frauds posing as pastors and as bible teachers, and they rob people of the joy that they could experience from Christ. They rob them by teaching false doctrines, and by not pointing them to Jesus. So, they are not called by God because they are false shepherds. To these false shepherds, the ministry is a career, meaning a way to make money, and some are in it not just for the money, but for other selfish motives. Jesus promises abundance of life for those who will try to get it, or for those who want it and receive it from Jesus. To get that abundant life, you must sell out 100% to the Lord Jesus Christ. Fill yourself up with a steady diet of God’s word the best that you can, and you will enjoy life more than you ever thought that you could. A Christian who is not sold out to Christ 100%, and in some way is compromising, is going to be miserable.






John 10:11



Like a faithful shepherd guards his sheep, and like faithful shepherd fight on behalf of his sheep, even to the death to protect his sheep, Jesus died to save us from Hell. Jesus did what he needed to do to protect us from eternal suffering, so he is the “Good Shepherd”, and he laid down his life for the sheep. Jesus was willing to fight for us till death, so that we would have a wonderful eternity.






John 10:12



Jesus is the ultimate faithful shepherd, and ministers who give out the word of God, and who care about God’s people, are Under-Shepherds, meaning that they are under the authority of Jesus Christ. Back in those days, sometimes shepherds would hire “hirelings” to watch their sheep, and to these men it was just a job, so they did not care about the sheep at all, instead they only cared about their paycheck, so to them it was just a career. So, when a wolf came to attack the sheep, they would run away, and they would not stay and fight, instead they would take off to save their own lives. They would let the sheep die because they did not care about the sheep. Jesus is speaking of spiritual shepherds here, meaning people who claim to be ministers, but are only in it for the paycheck, or for some other personal gain.






John 10:13



The hired shepherd was more interested in himself, in doing his job of caring for God’s flock. Jesus is talking about preachers, and bible teachers who use the church instead of ministering to it. For them, the church is a stepping-stone to something better for themselves because they do not have a true heart for God, or for his people. These men can be obvious in their motives, or they can be like cult leaders, and be subtler by taking simple truths and complicating them by using all sorts of lofty language and big words that no one can understand. This does not help God’s people or feed the Lord’s sheep. There are other preachers who water down the truth because they think that the pure word of God might offend someone, and this also does not help God’s people because they are just getting watered down mush.






John 10:14



Jesus and Christians know each other. Salvation is not about religion, or about doing the right religious rituals in the correct order, and salvation is not even about the church. Salvation is about having a one-on-one relationship with your maker through the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus talked about Judgement Day, he said, many will say to me, we did this and that and all these other religious things in your name Jesus, and he will say, depart from me I never knew you. The important question to ask yourself is, do you know Jesus, or do you just know about him?






John 10:15



It all began when Jesus laid down his life for his sheep. We would not be Christians at all if Jesus had not laid down his life for us on Mount Calvary. His blood paid for our sins, so that we could be forgiven in the first place. His blood paid for our sins so that we could have a relationship with him, and so we can get to know him.






John 10:16



Jesus is talking to the Israelites here, but he is making it clear that they are just one part of his spiritual flock. Jesus has plans that go beyond the Nation Israel, meaning that he is going to blend people of every size, and shape, and race, and nationality into one huge flock.






John 10:17



Jesus says that the Father loves me because I was willing to lay down my life, and I raised myself back up after 3 days. Jesus went through a nightmare of suffering for us on Mount Calvary when he was hanging on that cross, and the Father loved him for doing it. If the Father loves Jesus for doing this, how much more should we love the Lord for doing it, since we are the ones who benefit from his suffering, and from his death on the cross.






John 10:18



Jesus let the Pharisees win when they had him condemned to death. Jesus let Pilate win when he condemned him to death. Jesus let the soldiers win when they drove the nails into his hands and feet. Jesus let them win because there was no other way that they were going to get him on that cross. No one could take his life because he is God, and he allowed it to happen. Jesus picked the time and the place of his death.






John 10:19



Notice how many times in this Gospel that there is a division caused by the Lord’s words. The idea that Christ came to bring unity among all people is not true, and he never claimed that he came to bring unity, instead he claimed to bring a sword and division among people. His entrance into the world, and into homes, and into people brings division, and not unity. There is unity between people who receive him and make him the Lord of their lives, but there is a division between those who receive Christ and those who reject him.






John 10:20



Jesus is the only perfect person who ever lived. Jesus never said a wrong thing, and he never spoke an unkind word, and he never did anything that was wrong, which tells you about the depraved nature of those who claimed that he was demon possessed. How could anyone come to that conclusion concerning the most perfect person who ever lived, but not everybody came to that conclusion.






John 10:21



The people had enough sense to recognize that what Jesus did was good. Jesus did only good things, and they were honest enough to recognize that.






John 10:22



The Feast of Dedication was also known as the Feast of Lights, and it was not a feast established by the Lord, instead it was established by a man named Judas Maccabee in about 164 B.C. The Feast of Dedication celebrated the re-dedication of the Temple after it had been desecrated by some Gentiles, and it is also known as Hanukkah, and it takes place around Christmas time.






John 10:23



Solomon’s Porch was outside the Temple itself, and it was the area around the Temple where Gentiles were allowed. Gentiles were not allowed to be inside the Temple.






John 10:24



Jesus could not be any clearer about being Christ, so he has declared that he is the Messiah. These men are implying that Christ has not given them enough information to form an opinion about him, but others had enough information to believe in him, many others. The truth is that these Israelites did not need any more information, but what they needed was to be more receptive to the truth, and to stop being pig-headed.






John 10:25



In other words, Jesus said, look at what I do, and you will know that I am the Messiah, Son of God. Jesus did the things that the Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would do.






John 10:26



They had no interest in Christ because they were not his sheep, and they were not his sheep because they had no interest in Christ. The same word of God that blesses some, means nothing to others. The difference is some are his sheep, and some are not.






John 10:27



Sheep do not have to be branded like cows, and the only proof of ownership that the shepherd needs, is his voice. They follow the voice of their shepherd. Preachers who say that you can be a Christian, and do not have to have any interest at all in knowing Christ, or obeying Christ, are false prophets.






John 10:28



If one genuine Christian has ever lost their salvation, Christ would be guilty of breaking a promise, and that will not happen because he is God, so no genuinely saved person will go to Hell.






John 10:29



Not only is Jesus’s hand there, but the hand of the Father is also there. They both guard us and have a hand on us, so they both have us in their grips. If you are a true Christian, you will not go to Hell.






John 10:30



This is a remarkable statement, and Jesus is saying that he is God, so do not let anyone kid you and say that he is not God.






John 10:31



The Jews knew that Jesus was claiming to be God because the last time they had tried to stone him over the same issue, which was Jesus claiming to be God. The only people who ever doubt that Jesus claimed or said that he was God are the Theological Liberals who do not believe the word of God, and the cults. They are the only ones who deny that Jesus ever claimed to be God, but these Jews knew.






John 10:32



These religious leaders had their hands filled with rocks, and they were ready to fire stones at Christ, but before they could throw them, Jesus asked them, which one of my good works have made you so angry that you want me dead?






John 10:33



They said, because you are a mere man who claims to be God. The Jews accused him of claiming to be God and they were correct because he did, and he never denied it.






John 10:34



Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6, in which the judges of Israel are called gods. The judges of Israel back in the Old Testament were not literal gods, but they were human beings. However, because of their positions in the Civil Government as judges of the people, they represented God when they judged, and therefore they were called gods. They were supposed to judge the guilty like God judges the guilty, and they were to protect the innocent like God protects the innocent. They were to represent God’s Justice, and that is the reason why they were called gods.






John 10:35,36



Jesus is saying, for many generations you have applied the term gods to mere human beings who were just spokesmen and judges for God. You called them gods and you did not find anything wrong with that, so you should not be bothered by Jesus who really is God, and who is claiming to be God. In verse 35 Jesus says, “the scripture cannot be broken”, meaning that every word, and every syllable, and every letter of the Holy Bible is etched in eternal stone. Heaven and earth will pass away, my word will never pass away, so if the bible says it is true, it is true, and if the bible predicts it, it will happen. If the bible says it is right, it is right, and if the bible says something is a sin, it is a sin.






John 10:37,38



Jesus is saying, if you do not believe that I am who I am because of the words I say, you can believe me because of the things that I do. Look at the things that I do, and the things that I do not do because my actions prove that I am who I say I am. People who say they are Christians, and live no different than non-Christians, are asking you to believe their words, and not their actions, and this is the exact opposite as to what Jesus said.






John 10:39



Jesus claimed to be God, and because he claimed to be God, they took up stones to stone him to death. They realize that instead of backing down on his claims of being God, he argued to streng those claims. They try to arrest him, and once again they fail, but they will not give up.






John 10:40



Jesus’s 3 years of ministry is ending at this point, and he is ending them in about the same area where he began them, which is where John baptized him at.






John 10:41



This was a nice compliment to give John the Baptist and his ministry. John’s ministry was not flashy, and he was a hard preacher, and he never performed a miracle, but he spoke the word of God, and like they said, everything he said about Christ is truth.






John 10:42



There is a division among the people again regarding Christ. Some people hated him, especially some of the religious leaders, and others were afraid to receive him because the religious leaders would make it hard on them. There were some who did believe on Jesus, and the religious leaders made sure that they paid for their faith in Christ. In every generation, there is a remnant of people who want forgiveness of sins, and escape from eternal Hell, and fellowship with their Creator through Jesus Christ, more than they want friendship with the world and acceptance by others, and they are willing to be rejected for it.






John 11:1



Bethany is just a village, and it is not a huge city. Notice how God calls Bethany the town of Mary and Martha, and they were not the most important people in the city, or part of the government, but it is the presence of God’s people that is the thing that makes an area important to God.






John 11:2



This Gospel that John wrote was written about 60 years after the death of Jesus on the cross, and 60 years after Mary anointed Jesus with the oil mentioned in verse 2. It is clear that her devotion is still fresh in God’s mind. Genuine acts of affection to God from Christians stay fresh in God’s mind, and he does not forget the things that Christians do for him, and he will reward you at the proper time.






John 11:3



In other words, he says, Jesus we have a problem and we thought that you would like to know about it. The one you love is sick, and that was their message to Christ. They did not make any requests, and they did not make any specific suggestions or demands. Mary and Martha know Jesus, and they know what he is like, and they trust him to do what needs to be done. God knows what our greatest need is, and he knows it better than anyone. Jesus loved Lazarus, but he is sick, and being sick, or having to endure suffering does not mean that God does not love you. Good things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. You cannot look at a person’s circumstance and know whether God is pleased or displeased with them.






John 11:4



Notice what Jesus did not say, Jesus did not say that Lazarus would not die, but he said that death would not be the outcome of Lazarus’s sickness. The outcome will be people marveling at the miraculous power of Jesus Christ, and the goodness of Jesus Christ, who will raise Lazarus from the dead.






John 11:5,6



Jesus loved Lazarus, and Martha, and Mary. Beneath the surface of every problem that we face, God has a purpose, and there is a purpose for why Jesus stayed two days more where he was at.






John 11:7,8



Jesus says, let’s go back to Judaea, but the Apostles are nervous about going back to Judea because Jesus is a wanted man there, meaning that they want him dead.






John 11:9



The Apostles were concerned about going back to Judea, and they were concerned about Jesus being put to death. Jesus’s answer to their concerns is that there is only 12 hours of daylight in a day. In other words, sometimes we must enter the danger zone to do God’s will because our time here is limited. If we only do God’s will when there is no risk involved, we are not going to accomplish much.






John 11:10



Walking in the night refers to not living for Christ. People who walk in the night do things their own way, and not God’s way. They stumble around, and they trip, and they run into problems because they are not walking in the light of God’s word.






John 11:11



Here you see the omniscience of Jesus. He knows everything about everyone, and everything about everything, and he knows it all the time. He knew that his friend Lazarus was dead even though he was not physically present with Lazarus. Whenever the New Testament talks about the sleep of death, it always refers to the body, and never the soul. The souls of the righteous who die go to Heaven, and into the presence of Almighty God. The unrighteous go straight to the place of torment, so “soul sleep” is not biblical.






John 11:12



The Apostles say, if sleep is Lazarus’s only problem, we do not have to go back there and risk our lives to wake him up do we?






John 11:13



The bible equates the death of a Christian with sleep. Death for a Christian is nothing more than an extended nap for the body. The body sleeps until Jesus wakes it up, and Christ will make sure it wakes up never to fall asleep again.






John 11:14



Jesus told them plainly that Lazarus is dead. None of the Apostles asked how he knew because they knew Christ, and when Christ said something, it was true.






John 11:15



Jesus says, I am glad that I was not there with Lazarus. You can search the whole bible and you can see that no one ever died in the presence of Christ. If Jesus was with Lazarus, he would not have died, and if he does not die, Jesus does not raise him after four days, and his Apostles do not marvel, and their faith is not strenged.






John 11:16



Thomas is a pessimistic man, and he is full of gloom, and he is sure that if they go back to Judea, they will be killed alongside of Jesus. The wonderful thing about Thomas’s devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ, is that he is willing to go with Christ anyway. It is best not to be pessimistic, but always be loyal to Christ even if you are afraid.






John 11:17,18



If Lazarus was in the tomb for four days, he died shortly after the messenger was sent by his sisters to Jesus. Jesus waited four days so that everybody would know that Lazarus was dead for sure. Back in those days, some people believed that the soul of a dead person would hover around the dead body for four days, and since the soul hung around, they thought that there was a chance that the person could come back from the dead. Even though this is not true, Jesus waited four days so there would be no doubt that Lazarus was dead.






John 11:19



A lot of people came to comfort the sisters, but they would soon discover that their comfort would be no longer needed. Jesus is about to transform this house of mourning into a house of celebration.






John 11:20



Martha leaves to go to meet Jesus, and they meet somewhere outside of the village. Many people did not go with her to meet Jesus for some reason, including her sister Mary, who waited at home.






John 11:21



Now the “only ifs” start, so Martha says, if only you had been here Jesus. The way to get beyond the “only ifs”, is by faith. You must trust what the word of God says. God is in control of all things, even the unpleasant things, and he is sovereign, and nothing happens without his permission.






John 11:22



Martha did not know what Christ would do, or could do, but she knew him well enough to know that he was going to do something. Martha did not lose her faith in Christ even though Jesus had not reacted to this sad situation as quickly as she would have liked him to.






John 11:23



Martha was sad, so she was crying and grieving, but Jesus’s words to her were, your brother will rise again. Now, we know how to deal with those suffering the loss of a loved one, but there is no comfort for those who have lost an unsaved loved one, or an unsaved friend because there is no comfort for a person who has rejected Christ. There is nothing you can tell them on their deathbed to make them comfortable because they have no comfort coming. The only thing that you can tell their loved one is, God is Just. When a righteous person passes, there is plenty of comfort to give to their survivors. Jesus comforts Martha by saying, Lazarus will rise again.






John 11:24



Martha had no doubt that she would see her brother again at the resurrection, but she did not know that she was going to see him again in a couple of minutes.






John 11:25



What a remarkable claim made by Jesus Christ. It means that Jesus is stronger than death, and your faith in Christ. So, by receiving him as Lord and Savior, he will cause you to defeat death because Jesus is more powerful than the grave.






John 11:26



If we die before Jesus returns, he will raise us from the dead when he returns. If we are alive when Jesus returns, we will skip death altogether, and we will be transformed by Christ into our resurrection bodies.






John 11:27



Martha believes that her brother will rise one day, and she believes it will happen because of his faith in Christ, and she believes that Jesus is the giver of life, even before he raises her brother from the dead.






John 11:28,29



Martha returns home, and she pulls her sister Mary off to the side to speak in private. Martha wanted to tell her that Jesus was there, but the meeting was to be kept secret, but God does not want this meeting to be kept secret because he has different plans. What Jesus is about to do is going to be seen by many.






John 11:30,31



Notice how quickly she got up and went out. The people are following her right out of her house, and this is how God wanted it to be. When Almighty God raises Lazarus from the dead in front of all these people, they are going to be brought face to face with the fact that Jesus is who he claims to be, meaning God, and they will either receive Christ or reject him. One thing for sure is that once they see this miracle, they will never be the same again.






John 11:32



Mary fell at Jesus’s feet, and said the same thing which her sister had said.






John 11:33



Jesus saw the sadness, and the pain, and the suffering, and the death that sin brought into this world, and he was angered by it, and he was grieved by it because it never had to be. God hates sin because God is Holy and sin is offensive to him, and because he loves us, and God knows the evil that it does to us.






John 11:34



Jesus did not need any help in finding the tomb of Lazarus’ because as God, he could have figured that out, but he did ask the sisters, where have you laid him? Jesus did not need their help, but he let them help anyway. Like today, God does not need our help, but he allows Christians to help him, so he gives us a part to play in his plan, when we are walking in Holiness, and praying, and doing what he calls us to do.






John 11:35



Jesus wept. Remember that is our creator who is crying, and he is not a distant deity who does not care about his people. He understands the things that make us sad. Jesus knows that Lazarus is in a better place, but the death of Lazarus still makes Jesus sad. More than anything, Christ is crying for the sad survivors. When we are broken over the loss of a loved one, God is broken right along with us. Meaning that God enters our sadness with us.






John 11:36



They could tell that Jesus loved Lazarus. Jesus is not sad over Lazarus because he knows where Lazarus is. Death is still a sad thing because the survivors miss the one who died, and this is probably why Jesus is crying.






John 11:37



They are saying, we would have done it differently. Jesus did so many miracles, so why did he not keep Lazarus from dying in the first place. They are saying, if I were Jesus, I would have done it this way. This is something that every Christian is tempted to say or do. Jesus is about to accomplish something much greater than he would have accomplished if he would have healed Lazarus before he died. When God does not act the way in which we think we would act if we were God, just remember, he is accomplishing something far greater by doing things his way, and that is how we live by faith in God.






John 11:38



Jesus was still feeling sad when he arrived at the tomb. Most tombs were either natural, or man-made caves which were cut out of the side of mountains or rocks.






John 11:39



Martha is shocked because Martha thought that Jesus just wanted to see his deceased friend, her brother Lazarus, one more time. She thought that Jesus wanted to just pay his last respects, but she had no idea that Jesus was planning on raising him. This is the reason why she is horrified at the thought of opening the cave. He has been dead for four days, she says, so it is not worth it Lord, and the odor is going to be bad.






John 11:40



If Martha has enough faith to obey the Lord Jesus Christ, and remove that covering of the cave, she will be rewarded, and she will see the power of God.






John 11:41,42



This whole thing was for the glory of God, meaning that Lazarus’s sickness, and his death, and his soon to be resurrection, are not going to go to waste. So, none of the anxious moments before Lazarus died are going to go to waste, and none of the sorrow after his death was for nothing. Something spectacular is about to happen, and Jesus prays to God the Father out loud, so when it does happen, God Almighty will get all the credit.






John 11:43



Jesus said, Lazarus come out. What we see here is a small sample of what is going to happen someday, so this is a prototype of the final resurrection. Lazarus is going to hear the voice of Jesus, and come out of his tomb. Someday each of us will hear the voice of Jesus Christ whether we are saved or not. Everyone will hear the voice of the Son of Man, and they will come back from the dead, only we will not come out wearing our grave clothes like Lazarus. We will never die again and wherever we go, it will be forever, and you are not going to cease to exist either.






John 11:44



It must have been tough for him to come out in his grave clothes, meaning all wrapped up tightly. He had been dead four days, and this is an amazing miracle. Jesus brought him back from Paradise after four days.






John 11:45



Who but Almighty God could do something like this? only God could do this miracle, therefore many believed. How can one dismiss evidence like this? because this man is Almighty God, but sadly some people still did not believe.






John 11:46



They did not go bragging about Christ, instead they went and reported this resurrection to stir-up more hatred concerning Christ because they were like spies. The result of a miracle on a person’s life depends on that person’s moral character. They told the Pharisees that they needed to do something quickly to put an end to him.






John 11:47



Notice our Lord’s worst enemies admitted that he did many miracles because they could not deny these miracles. The big question now is, what are we going to do about it? Their hearts are too hard to repent.






John 11:48



The rulers were afraid that if too many people started following Jesus Christ, it would upset the Romans. They fear that the Romans will become nervous if to many Israelites follow Jesus, Rome will come down and destroy the Temple and scatter the Jews. This is exactly what Rome did in 70 A.D., but not because Israel accepted Jesus and he became popular, but because they rejected Jesus, and for rejecting their Messiah, this was their judgement.






John 11:49



The High Priest is calling his religious colleagues stupid, and he is right because they are stupid, but not for the reason that he thinks.






John 11:50



Caiaphas cannot believe how stupid his fellow rulers are. They had asked about what to do about Jesus, and Caiaphas says, we are going to kill him of course, and as quickly as possible.






John 11:51



Caiaphas was a horrible person, but that did not matter because he still held the office of High Priest, and God honored that position. As the High Priest, he spoke as a prophet, but Caiaphas who did not know God at all was not saved. He spoke God’s word, but he misunderstood it, and he twisted the meaning of it, but he still spoke the word of God. The Holy Spirit was saying, through the words of Caiaphas, that Christ must die and pay for the sins of man, but Caiaphas twisted the words to mean that they had to murder Jesus before Christ became popular.






John 11:52



The Holy Spirit is saying, through the High Priest, who does not know God, that Jesus will die, and that he will pay for our sins, rather than all people being doomed to eternal Hell without any hope. Christ made it possible for anyone, and from any nation to repent at any time while they are still alive, and to be saved, and to receive eternal life.






John 11:53



The religious leaders are plotting to take Christ’s life. They turned up the heat after they saw the resurrection of Lazarus, so they tried even harder to kill Jesus. Now, before there was any legal process, and before Jesus was found guilty by anyone in a reasonable court, and before they even charged him with anything, they were determined to execute Jesus.






John 11:54



After the resurrection of Lazarus, and between and Holy week, Jesus goes about 15 miles away, and he finds a quiet secluded place to be alone with his disciples. It is now getting close to the end of his earthly ministry, and this private time is more important than ever for him, and for his disciples.






John 11:55



Passover was a big religious festival in Jerusalem, and all adult men were required to go and attend. Some of these men needed to be purified ahead of time, so that they could observe those Holy Days because to attend, you could not be “Ceremonial Unclean”.






John 11:56



Jesus is the big topic of conversation among the people in Jerusalem. They are wondering if he will show up for the Passover because they knew that he was a wanted man.






John 11:57



If anybody saw Jesus, they were under orders to report his whereabouts to the religious leaders, so that the leaders could arrest him. The populous of Jerusalem understood this order. For those who see Jesus, there is no middle ground because you are either for him or against him. It is easy for a false Christian in a country like America, where you are not arrested or killed for your faith. There are a lot of False Christians because there is no price to pay to call yourself a Christian. When there is a price to pay for being a follower of Christ, only true Christians will claim Christ as their Lord and Savior. When persecution begins, the churches will streng because false believers will be weeded out.






John 12:1



Jesus goes from Ephraim down to an area close to Jerusalem because Holy week is right around the corner. Jesus is there spending time with his friends, Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus who he had raised from the dead.






John 12:2



Jesus is worthy of honor, and that is what Lazarus, and his two sisters are doing because they are honoring him with this special dinner.






John 12:3



Pure spikenard was expensive perfume, and it was made in Northern India, and it was imported in a sealed flask. The only time that anyone would break open those flasks was if it were a special occasion, so this is what Mary does for Jesus. This Nard was worth about a year’s wage for an average working man, so it was her life savings, so this was a tremendous sacrifice that Mary made.






John 12:4-6



Judas was a God using, and money grabbing thief, and to make things worse, he used Pious language to cover up his greed. Judas did not care about the poor, or Jesus because Judas only cared about Judas. Judas wanted that money to be put in the treasury, so that he could dip into it, and steal it because Judas’s devotion was to himself. The big test for a Christian is what they do with their money.






John 12:7



Jesus comes to the rescue of Mary and defends her, and her devotion to him. It was normal to anoint dead bodies with perfumes and oils, so Mary was doing this to Jesus before he died. It is a good idea to honor people before they die, and to be nice to people before they die.






John 12:8



Jesus is saying, spend time with me and give your devotion to me because that is more important than doing things that you think, that I think are important, even good things like helping the poor. Whatever works comes because of spending time with Christ is fine, but your top priority is to spend time with him, and not to do busy work in his name.






John 12:9



Lazarus being raised from the dead made him a celebrity, whether he wanted to be or not, and the people from all around came to see him.






John 12:10,11



Because of Lazarus’s popularity, many of the Jews received Christ and started to believe on him, and this angered the Jewish leaders. They wanted to kill Lazarus, so that they could protect the popularity of their religious organization.






John 12:12,13



This is Palm Sunday, and it is exactly one week before Jesus Christ is raised from the dead. The crowd meets Jesus by carrying green palm branches, and palm branches were symbolic of victory. They recognized that Jesus is their Messiah, and they feel in their heart that Jesus, as their Messiah, is going to give them victory over Rome. This is the reason why they have the palm branches welcoming him into Jerusalem.






John 12:14,15



Notice in verse fourteen it says, “as it is written” it is there because Jesus is fulfilling a Messianic prophecy by getting on this donkey and riding into Jerusalem with the accolades of the people on this day. Jesus is officially offering himself to the Nation Israel as their Messiah, and as their King, and the people knew it.






John 12:16



A lot of things sunk into the minds of the Apostles after he was raised from the dead. After Christ was raised from the dead, he spent 40 days with the Apostles before he ascended into Heaven. During these 40 days, he taught them many things, and the significance of what happened on Palm Sunday was one of those things.






John 12:17



You see here why God overruled the privacy that Mary and Martha wanted at Lazarus’s funeral, and when Jesus went to the grave site. The women wanted to keep all that private, but God overruled that, so that all these people who were mourning Lazarus and who came to the grave site could witness Jesus raising Lazarus, and now they are talking about it, just as God wants them to do.






John 12:18



The huge crowd that gave Jesus that entrance on Palm Sunday were there because of the witnesses at the resurrection of Lazarus, and they had spread the word. These people now believed Jesus was the Messiah.






John 12:19



In other words, we cannot stop this man because there is nothing we can do, and we have tried everything, and he keeps getting more popular. The people saw right through the lies of the Pharisees. People can be falsely accused, or they can falsely accuse you, but if you keep walking with the Lord, eventually the truth will come out and you will be vindicated, hopefully in this life, but if not this life, the next one.






John 12:20-22



Some Greeks wanted to talk to Jesus, so they approached the Apostle Philip, who was also Greek himself. God used Philip here because he was a Greek, so God used him because of who he was. Each one of us who know Christ are unique, and we are qualified to be used in a unique way by God. Therefore, it is important for all of us to be ourselves in the Lord, and God will use us in ways which he will not use someone else.






John 12:23



In other words, the hour has come for the cross. The cross was an ugly thing, and it was the electric chair of the 1st century, but this time it was going to display the glory of Almighty God. The cross of Christ put God’s honor on display, and it showcased God’s unselfishness, and it showcased his mercy, and his willingness to forgive, and his love for those who did not deserve to be loved, meaning us.






John 12:24



If you put a seed in your pocket, it will never produce fruit because it must die and go into the ground. A seed must be buried like a dead man before it can sprout and produce fruit. This was the case with Jesus, so he is the seed of Eternal Life, and he is the seed of Holiness. When Jesus died on the cross, it was like a spiritual seed being buried in the ground, and it produced souls for Almighty God.






John 12:25



The man that loves his life apart from Christ, meaning his sinful lifestyle, will lose it. If you love things the way that they are, with you calling the shots in your life, instead of God calling the shots, you are going to lose that lifestyle which you are clinging to, and you are going to end up with less. Eternal Hellfire awaits those who will not repent and give up that life and who do not turn to Christ. If you are willing to turn away from your sinful lifestyle, and ask Christ to take control, and if you are willing to make Christ your Lord and Savior, you will receive something a lot better than that old life, meaning that you will get eternal life.






John 12:26



Jesus says that if you want to serve him, you must follow him. To serve Christ means to follow in his footsteps, and it means to live Holy to the point of self-denial, and to the point of suffering, and maybe even to the point of death, just like he did. No one serves Christ unless they are Holy. If you follow Christ, morally you will be serving God, and God honors that.






John 12:27



The thought of our filthy and vile sins being placed upon him was repulsive and horrifying to Jesus, spiritually speaking. add to that the tremendous pain and suffering of crucifixion, and no wonder his soul was tormented as he thought about it.






John 12:28-30



In other words, Jesus is saying, Father may my pain and my suffering glorify your name, and may it work to bring about your honor, so use my suffering and my pain to do that for you. Christians need to spend less time complaining about their troubles and more time asking God to use those troubles to bring glory to his name. God the Father was speaking to him, and some of the people did hear it, but they said it was thunder. How could they get that out of what God the Father said? God the Father spoke understandable words, but they said it thundered because they did not want to believe what the Father said. When God’s word is clear on any subject, do not say, I do not hear that.






John 12:31



This world has been judged by Almighty God, so it has been tried, and convicted and sentenced to eternal death because of its sin against God. The good news is that Jesus came to earth and went to the cross, and was willingly, and voluntarily punished for all our sins. The “prince of this world” refers to Satan, and Jesus knocked him off his throne by going to the cross. The devil lost his war against God when Jesus died on the cross, but how? Satan cannot take anyone to Hell if they are willing to repent and ask Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior, and Satan cannot have one single soul unless they willingly go with him.






John 12:32,33



“Lifted up” refers to crucifixion. Jesus says, when you do not know what to say to non-Christians who are lost, and you know that they are on their way to Hell because they absolutely do not want to know Christ, keep talking about the cross, and keep lifting the cross, and keep lifting Jesus, and what he did for us on that cross. The Holy Spirit will use that message of the cross to draw honest seekers to him.






John 12:34



The Jewish people here are confused because according to the Old Testament, the Messiah is supposed to reign forever, but Jesus keeps talking about his death, so how can he be the Messiah. Simple, the Old Testament also teaches that the Messiah will die for the sins of man, and will be raised again, and he will reign forever. They are confused because they did not consider the whole word of God.






John 12:35,36



Jesus is referring to himself as the “light”. In other words, he is saying that his public ministry is almost over, and that they need to take advantage of his presence while they can.






John 12:37-41



The religious rulers were in the presence of the Light of the World, meaning Almighty God Jesus Christ. They were in the presence of the God who created them, but they chose, of their own free-will, to put on a blind fold. They chose to shut their eyes to the obvious truth about the Lord Jesus Christ. They made the wrong choice because they chose blindness, and because they chose blindness, they will have an eternity of blindness, and an eternity of outer darkness where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.






John 12:42,43



They were cowards, and cowards love the praise of men more than the praise of God, and cowards know the truth, but they will not speak it. It is sickening to see so-called Christians being vague about spiritual truth that is crystal clear in the word of God.






John 12:44



Jesus is the Father’s representative, so when you believe Christ, you are believing in the Father. When people reject Christ, they are rejecting the Father, but when people accept Christ, they are accepting God the Father.






John 12:45



This is because Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus is the exact representation of God the Father, so to see him, is to see Almighty God. How gracious was God that he became man, so that we could see him?






John 12:46



When you receive Christ, your eyes are opened, and you are no longer in spiritual darkness. It is amazing what happens when you repent and receive Christ. When you become a Christian, you see the invisible reality of the next world. Meaning that you will know that there is a Hell that is hot, and that a New Earth and New Heavens will be wonderful for those who receive Christ. The point that Jesus is making, is that you are no longer in darkness concerning eternity, as other people are.






John 12:47



The first time that Christ came, he did not come to judge the world, instead he came as a Savior. He did not come to condemn humans, or to take vengeance on anyone. Jesus Christ came to offer amnesty for all those who would repent and receive him as Lord and Savior.






John 12:48



Just because Christ did not punish the first time that he came, does not mean that those who reject him will never be punished. The word of God that you have before you, and that is in front of those who reject him, will rise against those people on the Day of Judgement. They will be condemned because they disregarded the Holy word of God, which pointed them to Jesus Christ.






John 12:49



The words which Jesus spoke, meaning the words that we have in front of us, are divine words, and therefore the rejection of the word of God by people today cannot be dismissed, and overlooked on the Day of Judgement.






John 12:50



The things which Jesus says in scripture are always about eternal life, and the things he has said in scripture are the words of eternal life. This is the reason why he says them, and why he has not changed them one bit. Therefore, he said them exactly as the Father gave them, so no one should mess with the word of God because there are eternal consequences if you do.





John 13:1



Jesus loved his disciples completely, until the end of his life, and his love for them was complete and perfect, and it never skipped a beat It did not matter if he was tired, or hungry, or feeling great because his love was consistent.






John 13:2



Satan put the desire to betray Christ into the mind of Judas Iscariot, and he is accountable for betraying Christ because he could have resisted. Satan and his demons can put all sorts of thoughts and desires into people’s minds, but people can resist.






John 13:3



Jesus is returning to God, and he is returning to Heaven soon, and he knows it, but before he goes back, he must teach his disciples a lesson in humility, and it is going to shock them because they expected to be big shots in the Kingdom of Heaven, and not servants.






John 13:4,5



When Jesus washes the dirty feet of his disciples, he is doing the work of the lowest household slave. Christ knew he was God, and he knew that he was more important than his apostles, but he is treating them as if they were more important than himself.






John 13:6



Peter did not want Jesus, who he knew was God, to wash his feet because he was embarrassed to let Jesus do that.






John 13:7



Jesus said, you do not realize what I am doing, but Peter realized on the surface what Jesus was doing. Peter knew that Jesus was about to give him clean feet, but there is a bigger lesson here which Peter did not understand. Sometimes God allows certain things into the lives of his people, and sometimes that certain thing is circumstances or situations which we may not understand until later because it takes faith to walk with the Lord.






John 13:8



In other words, what Jesus is saying is, Peter if you do not let me wash your feet, you cannot hang around with me, and we will be cut off from each other. There is a spiritual lesson behind the feet washing. Our lives get dirty with sin, and we cannot enjoy the company of our God if we are spiritually dirty, and the only way to get clean is to let Jesus cleanse us. Unconfessed sin represents our dirty feet, and we have no part with Christ, and no fellowship unless we let him cleanse us.






John 13:9



First, Peter did not want any cleansing, but now he wants a bath, but he is not in need of a bath. Peter’s heart is right on target, and Peter is saying, I will do whatever it takes to fellowship with you Jesus.






John 13:10,11



Jesus says a person who has had a bath need only to wash his feet. Back in those days if a person wanted a full bath, they would have to go to a public bath house, but by the time that they would get home, their feet were dirty. They did not need another full bath, instead they just needed to wash their feet again. The second that you receive Christ, you are spiritually bathed, meaning 100% clean, so when you stand before God, you are perfect. As Christians when we sin, we cannot enjoy God’s company because our “feet” are dirty. We do not need another bath, meaning that we do not need to get saved all over again, but we do need to confess that sin before we can enjoy God. We need to wash our feet. Judas was going to betray Jesus and Jesus knew it, so this is who is unclean. Judas has not taken a spiritual bath like the other Apostles did, in other words, Judas is not saved, and his heart is not devoted to Christ. Judas looked dedicated to Christ, but he was not, and Jesus knew his heart, like God knows our hearts.






John 13:12-14



Here is a big lesson for us. If Jesus was willing to wash the disciples’ dirty feet, they should be willing to wash one another’s feet. If Jesus is willing to serve us, we, who have been saved by him, certainly we should be willing to serve others. If Jesus really is our Lord, we will not seek honor for ourselves. We will treat others as if they are more important than we are. This is what Jesus did, and it is what he commands us to do.






John 13:15



Jesus wants us to act like we are inferior. In other words, he wants you to consider others more important than yourselves, and to treat them that way because that is what he did.






John 13:16



No Christian should feel like they are too good to serve others because Jesus is our master, and we are not greater than our master, and if he served others, we should serve other also. The moment that Jesus stooped to the level of the lowest slave and washed the dirty feet of his disciples, he automatically brought dignity to the humblest position, and to the humblest work. No good honest work is without dignity if you do it as unto the Lord.






John 13:17



Happiness comes from knowing, and from doing God’s will. Blessed are you if you do God’s will. Serve, and be a humble servant to others. If your sad, find someone who has a need, and fill it.






John 13:18,19



Prophecy is being fulfilled right here. Judas was in the process of betraying Jesus, and Jesus wants his Apostles to know that he knows it is happening because he does not want them to think that he was caught off guard when it happens.






John 13:20



Jesus has just laid a bombshell on these men by telling them that one of them is the betrayer. The Apostles were probably wondering, how could one of us be the betrayer because Jesus has used each one of us in the ministry? which is true that every one of the Apostles, including Judas, had been Jesus’s messenger and had given out the word of God, and had done miracles in Jesus’s name. Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he says, people who receive my message are not receiving the messenger, but they are accepting and receiving me. The point that he is making is that Judas is not the issue, or none of us either, but Christ is the issue, and his message is the issue, and not the messenger.






John 13:21



Jesus was troubled in spirit, meaning that the thought of being betrayed by a friend hurt Jesus, so this was not pleasant for Jesus.






John 13:22-25



John was the closest to Jesus at this time, so he leaned back on Christ and asked, which one of us is going to betray you Jesus? No one knew who the betrayer was, not even at this point, and this was the last supper. None of the Apostles were completely sure that it was not themselves either. Do not take Holiness for granted no matter how long you have been a Christian because the bible says in 1st Corinthians 10:12: “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall”. It is smart to be on guard against yourself.






John 13:26



There was the answer, but they did not catch it. It was the person who Jesus gave the bread to after he dipped it, so it was Judas Iscariot. It was normal for the host of a dinner to dip a piece of bread in some sauce, and give it to the guest of honor, so this is what Jesus did for Judas. Jesus was treating Judas like he was a special guest, and like he was a good friend. Jesus was leaving the door of Salvation and Repentance and Friendship open to Judas, even at the last supper. Judas could repent and find total forgiveness, and even if the damage was already done.






John 13:27



Judas had an opportunity to repent, but he did not, and when he did not repent, he gave that area of his life over to Satan, and Satan gladly took control. That is the danger of not surrendering every area of your life to Almighty God because each time a person says no to God in an area of their life, they are leaving it wide open to Satan for him to use.






John 13:28



No one had yet figured out that Judas was the betrayer because Judas was a slick one. They thought that they could trust him, and they even elected him treasurer.






John 13:29



It was normal for Jesus and his men to buy food, and to give money to the poor. Jesus got both food and money in a miraculous way; and those miracles were the exception. Even though he made food out of nothing, Jesus still relied upon offerings, like the ministries do today. Jesus also had to go physically and buy the food like we do today. God oftentimes does things through people in a normal way.






John 13:30



It was night, and in more than one way for Judas because he walked out into literal darkness, and by going through with the betrayal, he was walking into eternal darkness as well.






John 13:31,32



These verses are talking about the cross. On the surface it does not have much to do with Glory and Honor because on the surface the cross is a picture of shame, and it is a picture of a criminal paying for his crime. Jesus was not paying for his crime, instead he was paying for our crimes, and the Cross of Christ is a picture of Honor, and Glory, and Mercy, and of Grace because on it, God is reconciling sinful, and damned, and rebellious people to himself, by dying for their sins himself.






John 13:33



There was only room for one person on that cross, and that is the reason why he said, where I am going you cannot come. No one could help Jesus pay for our sins, and no one could ease Jesus’s pain because he had to suffer, and he had to suffer alone. We as Christians can suffer for Christ, and we can suffer for standing for Christ, but we cannot join him in paying for our sins.






John 13:34



When Jesus commands us to do the loving thing, what he is saying is be like me. Christians oftentimes say, I want to be more like Jesus, so now we know how to do that. Be nice to those who are not nice to you, and love them with the truth from God’s word because this is what Jesus did.






John 13:35



The unsaved world will know that Christians are disciples of Jesus Christ when Christians love one another. Christians could tell a lost person that they are Hell bound without Jesus Christ, and this would be correct, and it would be the right thing to do, but a Christians word will fall on deaf ears if they cannot get along with other Christians.









John 13:36,37



Peter did not like that answer that he could not follow Jesus now. like a little child he asked, why can I not follow you? I want to do it now. He cannot believe that Jesus is headed for the cross to die for the sins of man, and that Jesus must do it alone. Jesus is going to die alone, and he will rise alone, and he will ascend to Heaven alone. Peter tells Jesus that he would die for him.



.
John 13:38



Peter was serious about laying his life down for Jesus, and he believed that he would. Jesus knew Peter better than Peter knew Peter. Things can change fast for a Christian, even for a Christian who is totally sold out to Christ like Peter. Jesus knew Peter would deny him three times, even if Peter did not know it.






John 14:1



If you have a mind that is filled with worry, God’s word has the answer. Jesus says it right here, do not let your heart be troubled, so trust in God and trust in me, Jesus says.






John 14:2



Mansion here refers to an apartment sized place, but a nice place. Jesus specifically chooses places for each of us, which will also be a place where your new body will be able to function, and where we will have access to Christ.






John 14:3



They did not want to be separated from Christ because they loved being around Jesus, so Jesus says that it is not going to be forever. Jesus tells them, I am going to come back for you, and I will take you to be with me.






John 14:4,5



It is sometimes good to be around people like Thomas. Sometimes Christians pick on Thomas because he was a doubter, but we have all doubted. Thomas was sincere, and he asked good questions because he asked questions to learn. If Thomas was not honest about his doubts, and if he did not ask good questions, we would not have verse 6.






John 14:6



Jesus is saying that he is the only way to Heaven, and the only way to eternal life, and that no one comes except through him. The Jesus of the new age movement would say that all roads lead to Heaven. Jesus is truth and he speaks truth; and genuine truth is narrow and inflexible.






John 14:7



There is no generation gap within the God head because God the Father and God the Son are in perfect harmony on everything, and there should be no generation gap between older Christians and younger Christians. If both parties are filled with the Holy Spirit, there will be no gap.






John 14:8



Philip wants to know God the Father, and this is what every Christians number one goal should be. Other goals are ok but getting closer to God should be our top goal. We should strive to live in a way that is pleasing to God, and to live to be used by him.






John 14:9



Jesus says that Philip does not need to know God the Father. What Philip needs is to know that he knows the Father because he does. He knows Jesus, and that is the same as knowing the Father. Jesus is Almighty God in human flesh, so Jesus and God the Father are the same.






John 14:10



Jesus’s words never contradicted his actions, and he was always perfectly consistent with what he said, and with what he did, which is because both his words and his actions were always under the complete control of Almighty God.






John 14:11



Jesus is saying, believe my words when I tell you that I and the Father are one, and if you cannot believe words, believe my actions because they testify to the fact that it is true, and believe my miracles.






John 14:12



Jesus is saying that Christians will do greater things than he did. And they did, the Apostle Peter preached one sermon on the day of Pentecost, and 3000 souls were saved from Hell. Jesus is not talking about greater physical miracles because to God, it is greater to save a soul from Hell, than to heal the blind, or raise someone from the dead. With the word and spirit of God, we can do greater things than even what Jesus did.






John 14:13,14



Jesus says, if you pray for anything in my name, I will do it for you. To pray in Jesus’s name means to pray consistent with the word of God, and consistent with the character of Jesus Christ. When we pray for something that is in line with the word of God, and that is consistent with the character of Christ, we will get what we ask for, but only when the time is right.






John 14:15



If you love Jesus, you are going to do what he says, and you are going to want to please him. You do not tell someone you love them, and continue to do things that they hate and that irritates them. continue to do it on purpose with no intention of ever stopping because this is not love, instead this is mockery. The same goes for God, so do not tell him that you love him, and continue to sin and do things that are offensive to him, and not even care about changing. Loving God has nothing to do with feelings, instead it is about obeying him.






John 14:16



That other comforter that will be with us forever is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit stays in a Christian forever, so once he comes in, he never leaves. Jesus did not kick his men out of the group when they sinned, but he was grieved when they sinned, but he put up with it. The presence of the Holy Spirit in us Christians today has replaced Jesus’s physical presence in the world, and like Christ, the Holy Spirit is grieved when Christian’s sin, but he does not leave when they sin, instead he puts up with it.






John 14:17



One of the unique things about this church age is that the Holy Spirit lives inside of God’s people forever. In the past, the Holy Spirit had always been with God’s people, and he even came upon them and empowered them for service, but only temporarily. So, after those days of Pentecost, he is in us for good.






John 14:18



Jesus has been talking about leaving the Apostles, and how they cannot go where he is going, at least right now. So, Jesus, since he ascended into Heaven, and is not here physically, has not left us alone because we have God’s literal spirit inside of us. It is not a force, and it is not a feeling. When you receive Jesus Christ into your life as Lord and Savior, the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ literally comes to live inside of you, and his mind, and his emotions, and his will, and his spirit, and his soul is inside of you if you are a Christian.






John 14:19



Jesus says, the world will not see me anymore, but why just the world? Because after Jesus was raised from the dead, he did not appear to any lost sinners, Jesus only appeared to his people, and to those who were to be witnesses to testify to the fact that he was raised to a lost world. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is God’s pledge to you as a Christian that he will raise you from the dead too. His resurrection was a prototype of our resurrection.






John 14:20



Jesus says, that on that day, you are going to realize that I am in you. “That Day” refers to the day in which Jesus will send his Holy Spirit to live in his people. That day began on the day of Pentecost when his followers were filled with his spirit. You know Jesus is in you when your attitude toward sin changes.






John 14:21



If you love God, it is going to be seen in the fact that you obey his commands. Christian love does not exist outside the realm of truth, and outside the realm of obedience to God. You are not acting in a loving way toward someone if you are telling them something that is contrary to scripture, or if you are disobeying God. There are great rewards for people who love God, and show that love by their obedience. The Father will show his love to one who obeys, and Jesus will reveal himself to those who obey.






John 14:22



This Apostle asks, why are you only going to reveal yourself to us, and not the lost world? He seems to be concerned about the world being left out, but the bible says, whosoever will, may come and receive Christ, meaning that the invitation is open to everyone.






John 14:23,24



If the Apostle was concerned about the world being left out, he should not be, which is what Jesus is telling him. If somebody loves the Lord, and shows it by their obedience, they will not be left out because Christ and the Father will be more than happy to come and have fellowship with them. Obedience to God springs out of love for God. Jesus and the Father will not come and have close friendship with the disobedient because they will not go where they are not wanted.






John 14:25,26



Jesus is talking specifically to his Apostles here, and he is not talking to us or anyone else. Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit will work in their minds to remind them of the things that Jesus has spoken. It is a promise of Revelation to the Apostles, and a promise of Inspiration. We have every single word that the Holy Spirit reminded them of concerning Jesus, and it is called the New Testament.






John 14:27



The world cannot possibly give you peace. The world can provide distractions, so that you can forget about reality for a while, but the worlds amusements cannot give you peace because they cannot take away the fear of death. Until the fear of death is gone, there can be no peace. Peace that can only come from knowing that your sins are forgiven, and gone forever, and that you do not have to fear death, and it only comes from a relationship with Jesus Christ because he paid for those sins, and you must receive him to find forgiveness.






John 14:28



The disciples’ love at this point was kind of selfish because they wanted to keep Jesus around because they liked it that way. They were not thinking about Jesus, and they had not considered the humiliation involved in the Almighty God, the Lord Jesus Christ becoming a man and living on this earth. If the love of the Apostles is pure, they will miss Christ, but at the same time they will be happy for him that he is returning to the Father.






John 14:29



Jesus predicted that he would die, and he predicted that he would be raised, and that he would be ascending into Heaven after all this is done. When it really happens, the disciples will believe that he is God.






John 14:30



The prince of this world refers to Satan. Jesus says that the devil has no hold on him, and no claim on him because Christ never sinned. Satan can accuse us to God anytime that he wants to, and he can say, God, they are sinners, and they deserve Hell, and it would be the only truthful statement the devil will ever say, but he cannot accuse Christ because Christ never sinned






John 14:31



Jesus is not going to die because Satan accused him of sin and was right, instead Jesus is going to die for our sins, and because he loves the Father. The cross proves that he loves us. The Cross, which was the Father’s will for Jesus, also proves that he loves the Father, and that he is willing to obey the Father, even unto death. Christ commands us to love the Father.





John 15:1



The vine is an Old Testament symbol of the Nation of Israel, and they are God’s vine. Jesus says that he is the true vine, in other words, the Israelites were no longer to be identified with the Nation Israel, instead from this point on, they are to seek to be identified with the Lord Jesus Christ. Not just the Israelites, but all people were not to be seeking to be identified with the Nation Israel, which used to be the conduit of salvation, but now it is the Lord Jesus Christ. Becoming an Israelite is no longer the way to salvation, instead to be saved, you need to be a Christian






John 15:2



To be in Christ is to be saved, and Jesus said that every Christian who does not bear fruit will be cut off by God. God will take them away from the place where they are able to bear fruit, but this does not mean that you will lose your salvation if you are really saved. God removes you from the place where you can be productive. Paul was afraid of this, and he was afraid of not being used by God because of “Moral Default”. It is good to be Christian who is living for God and bearing fruit for his glory, which is Holiness, and helping other people come to Christ for salvation. God wants fruit bearing Christians to bear even more fruit, so he prunes us through hard times and suffering which brings us closer to Christ. If we are really saved, it makes us holier and more fruitful.






John 15:3



Some clipping comes from suffering, but much of the pruning God does comes from the word of God. Reading the word of God, and studying the word of God, and listening to the word of God, sanctifies a Christian from the inside out. A Christian cannot grow in holiness unless they are in the word of God.






John 15:4



The moment that you cut a branch off, it will not bear fruit because it needs the life growing sap from the tree, and it is the same with us and Jesus. We must abide in Christ, and we must stay connected to Christ, meaning to have fellowship with Christ through praise and prayer, and the word of God, and confessing our sins the moment that we commit them. Spiritual fruit comes from spending time with Jesus.






John 15:5



As Christians, if we choose not to pray, or not to praise, or not to be in the word of God, and not to confess our sins the moment that we commit them, worldliness will move in, and it is going to make us useless to God. The world will affect our thinking and our speaking, and our actions. If our fellowship with Christ is cut off, he will not work through us because the branch has been severed from the tree.






John 15:6



If a Christian does not live for the Lord, they may not be saved, instead they are just Christians in name only. So, they will be gathered, and they will be burned. There will be a lot of Church going people burning in Hell forever because that is all they were, church going. They never repented, and they never asked Jesus to be their Lord and Savior.






John 15:7



If you pray and praise God, and read the word, and if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, and are walking in obedience to God and you confess if you sin, you can pray for what you want and God will give it to you because the anything you ask for is not going to be something that your sin nature craves. If you are filled with God, and he is the most important thing to you, that will be reflected in the things you pray for. Your prayers are going to be generated by the Holy Spirit like the rest of your life, and you are going to ask for things that God wants to give you.






John 15:8



The purpose of prayer is not to get what we want, but it is to find out what God wants and ask for it, so he will be glorified. It is to ask for the things that honor God.






John 15:9



Jesus says, “continue ye in my love”. Remaining in the love of Jesus Christ is the same as abiding in Christ, and it means to stay connected to him through fellowship. God wants us to be in a position where he can show his love to us, and he cannot do this if we cut ourselves off through disobedience.






John 15:10



When we keep God’s commands, we remain in his love, and we put ourselves in a position to be blessed by him.






John 15:11



This is another reason God wants us to obey him, meaning that he wants us to be full of joy, and he wants our joy to be complete. Circumstances can be lousy, but you can still have joy if you are an obedient Christian who is fellowshipping with Jesus Christ. This does not mean that you are going to be all giddy and laughing all the time because joy is much deeper than happiness. Christians who lack joy, do not have fellowship like it should be, remember the fruit of the spirit is joy.






John 15:12



Christ loved us by being good to us, and by sacrificing his comfort for our good, so now he wants us to be good to each other. Do not just look out for your needs but look out for the needs of your fellow man, and especially look out for the needs of your fellow Christians.






John 15:13



This is the “Love Test”, meaning that someone who says I love you, but does not look out for your best interests, does not really love you. A person who loves you, is the one who will even sacrifice themselves to look out for your best interests.






John 15:14



That is reasonable because if someone hangs around you all the time, and they are constantly doing things that irritate you, which they know that you do not like, they are not your friend. The same with us and God. Jesus is our friend because he laid down his life for us, and we are his friends when we lay down our life for him. That means to obey him even when that obedience means sacrifice.






John 15:15



Jesus says, I call you friends because I make known to you the things that I have heard from my Father, meaning that friends confide in friends. Jesus says, I confide in you if you are my friend. Jesus will pass on things to you about himself that he will not tell other people if you walk and fellowship with him, and if you obey him.






John 15:16,17



You did not choose me, I chose you, is referring to the Apostles. Jesus chose them to be his people, but it is also true of Christians. We have been chosen before the foundation of the world to be a Christian. If you are a Christian, it is only because you have been hand-picked by Almighty God before you were even born.






John 15:18



The world is sinful, and Jesus was sinless, and that is the reason why the world hated him, and that is the reason why the world nailed him to the cross. What was true for Christ is also going to be true for us as Christians. The less we sin, the more we will be hated by the sinful world.






John 15:19



If you are walking with God, you are not going to be popular with the world. If you are living the way Jesus wants you to live, you are not going to be popular with the world. Therefore, it is a waste of time for Evangelical Christians to try to “cool” people into the Kingdom of God because it cannot be done. You cannot be cool in the eyes of the world, and be pleasing to God. If the world thinks you are cool, you have compromised your Holiness stand, and you have watered down the word of God, and you are worthless to Christ.






John 15:20



Jesus did not become popular with the unsaved world by being Holy, and Christians should not expect to ever become popular with the world by being Holy either. You have a choice, you can please God, or please the world, but you cannot do both because you are not greater than your master, meaning that they persecuted Jesus, so they will persecute you as a Christian.



John 15:21



When Christians are persecuted because they are living for Jesus, it is not because of them, but it is because of Christ in them. If we let Christ live through us in the way in which he wants us to, we will be persecuted. We will not be popular with the world.






John 15:22



The severity of a person’s judgement is determined by their level of privilege. Meaning that some of the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who know what the bible says but reject it.






John 15:23



Some Christians do not like to use the word “hate”. There are people who hate God, and who hate the people who follow God. Most unsaved people say that they do not hate God, but they hate Christians, and they say that they like God, but not the God of the bible. The God that they like is made up and does not exist.






John 15:24



The rulers and other people who were rejecting Christ were not rejecting Christ for a lack of evidence, but they were rejecting him because they did not like him, or the Father, or any of their Holy demands. Those people will die in their sins.






John 15:25



Christ never did anything to deserve anyone’s disapproval, let alone their hatred. No one who has learned about Jesus Christ and continues to reject him has a good reason for doing it.






John 15:26



When the Holy Spirit entered the believers on the Day of Pentecost, and every other believer after that, the Holy Spirit will cause that person’s knowledge of Christ to come alive. Jesus becomes so much more real in that person’s life. The reason you think about Jesus now is because the Holy Spirit is in you. It is also the reason you hunger for the word, and the reason that you pray.






John 15:27



Jesus says, you have been with me so you can testify. Being with Christ qualifies us to talk about him, therefore, the more that we spend time with him, the more qualified we are.






John 16:1



Jesus is saying, the things that I have been saying to you, I am saying because when bad times come, you will not give up on me. The best reason to be in the word during the good times is so you have a reservoir of strength to carry you through the bad times.






John 16:2



Jesus says that tremendous times of persecution are coming, so it is going to get bad, and people’s minds are going to be so twisted that some will think, I am going to kill an Apostle and I am going to make God happy by doing it, I am going to kill a Christian, so God will pat me on the back, and say, Good Job.






John 16:3



Anytime you suffer any type of persecution for the sake of Christ, remember that you are not the real target. The worlds hostility against Christians is against the God who they know you serve.






John 16:4



We may not always realize it, but God works to prepare us for what is coming in our future. The things you are learning right now, you need to learn because of something that is going to happen in the future.






John 16:5,6



Jesus had been talking about going away, and the disciples not being able to go with him right now, and because of this, the disciples let sorrow fill their hearts, which is dangerous. You do not want to let sorrows fill your heart, and it is important to not let disappointment cause sorrow to fill your heart. Disappointments are going to come, and we will all have them, but when sorrow fills your heart, it will drain you of spiritual strength. The bible says that the joy of the Lord is your strength. When disappointment comes, lift the shield of faith and stand on the word of Almighty God, and quote scripture that says that God is going to use this terrible thing to bring about good, so this way faith will fill your heart instead of sorrow.






John 16:7



Jesus, right away, tells them that him going away is good news disguised as bad news. For a Christian who loves God, all bad news is good news disguised as bad news because he is working all things together for our good. Jesus gets specific because when Jesus returned to Heaven after he ascended, he sent the Holy Spirit from the Throne of God to live in believers. Therefore, they were better off with Jesus returning to Heaven. If Jesus does not return to Heaven, and if he does not go to the Throne of God, he does not send the Holy Spirit back to live inside his people. It is better to have the Holy Spirit inside of us Christians, than Jesus confined to his body living in one spot.






John 16:8



When the Holy Spirit comes, he is going to have a ministry for the unsaved. The Holy Spirit ministers to Christians in many ways. His ministry to the unsaved is simple and direct, which is that he convicts them of their sin, and of their need for a savior.






John 16:9



The Holy Spirit convicts unsaved people concerning many sins, but the big one is the sin of rejecting Christ. The Holy Spirit concentrates on that sin because that is the one sin that will send an unsaved person to Hell if they do not repent of it because it is the most serious sin that there is.






John 16:10



Jesus’s death on the cross made it possible for lost sinners to be righteous in the presence of God. Jesus finished the work of redemption on the cross, and he went back home to the Father. The job of the Holy Spirit is to convince lost sinners that the righteousness Christ paid for on the cross with his death, is the only righteousness that you will ever need, and you get it by receiving him.






John 16:11



The prince of this world is Satan, and Jesus says that Satan is condemned. Satan has been tried, and convicted, and sentenced to eternal Hell because he did not submit to God, so he is going to Hell. He is the father of lies, and the damning of the devil to Hell means people who will not repent and receive Christ, will be damned as well.






John 16:12



In other words, if Jesus tried to teach them everything that he is going to teach them, in the future, they could not handle it. God does not expect us to know everything at one time because he is patient in waiting for us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.






John 16:13



The Apostles were given all truth, and this is a promise of Divine Inspiration, and they wrote it down, and it is called the New Testament.



John 16:14



You can tell when the Holy Spirit is talking through someone because they are talking about Jesus, so they are lifting Christ and Almighty God. Any preacher or teacher, who in their sermons, talks more about themselves, or their religion, or their denomination than about the Lord Jesus Christ and the word of God, is not being empowered by the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit does not do that, instead the Holy Spirit lifts Jesus.



John 16:15



Jesus has things that he wants to say to us. If you are a Christian, there are things Jesus has to say to you, and the Holy Spirit is his messenger. The Holy Spirit tells us what Jesus wants us to know. If you are reading the word of God, or if you are listening to the word of God, and something clicks in your mind, that is Jesus sending a message to you through the agency of the Holy Spirit.






John 16:16



In a little while Jesus will be arrested and crucified, and that is when they will not see him, but after another little while, Jesus will be raised, and they will see him again. The Resurrection, and the Crucifixion had not clicked in the minds of the Apostles, so the words of Jesus are a little confusing to them.






John 16:17,18



They kept asking, what does he mean by “a little while”? we do not understand what he is saying. It seemed to them that Christ was speaking in riddles about this, a little while and you will not see me, in a little while you will see me. Do not feel discouraged when God’s word has you puzzled because there are certain things in the word of God that we just do not understand, and sometimes we get puzzled, but do not quit reading or studying the word when this happens to you. The Apostles were even puzzled at times by the words of Almighty God.






John 16:19,20



Jesus says, when the world is happy, you are going to be sad, but later you will be happy, and the world will be the sad one. In other words, the bad times for Christians are good times for the world. On the surface, the unsaved seemed to be doing rather well, and they seem to be successful. This is because they are flowing with the ungodly current of the day and of the world, meanwhile Christians oftentimes feel out of place as they go against the unspiritual current, so do not be surprised if you feel sad and frustrated. Jesus gives us an example of this being true, meaning that the world rejoiced when he was crucified, but meanwhile his followers were shocked, and horrified, and sad.






John 16:21



Jesus is saying, some things are worth waiting for, and some things are worth experiencing pain to get, but after it is over, and when the pain is done, they are glad that they did it.






John 16:22



Jesus is saying that living for Christ is going to be worth it, and the hatred, and the hard times, and the sacrifice that you may be asked to endure by God for living for Christ is going to be worth it when we see Jesus for the first time. When we see the scars that are from the cross, we are going to wish that we had endured more for him. No one will ever be able to take our joy away. God is offering us a good deal, meaning to be a Christian, and live for Christ, and suffer and sacrifice, if need be, and be extremely happy for eternity. It is a much better deal than Satan has to offer, which is to sin today, and burn in Hell for eternity.






John 16:23



Jesus will not be around in person like he has been for the last three years, so the Apostles will not be able to look him in the eye and ask for things, but they will be able to talk to the Father in prayer, and ask him for things in Jesus’s name.






John 16:24



Jesus connects the subject of prayer with the subject of joy here. God wants his people to have joy, even amid suffering or frustration for doing things the right way when the world is doing the wrong thing. One of the greatest sources of joy is to ask God to do something that you know Jesus would ask for because if it something Jesus would ask for, he will do it, and when God answers yes, it will give you joy.






John 16:25



God the Father is the issue. Jesus says that a time is coming when I am going to use straight talk to tell you about the Father because God the Father is the one who conceived the plan of redemption long ago before the earth was created, so he came up with the “Plan of Ages”. God the Son came to earth 2000 years ago, and put the plan into action, and for 2000 years Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, has been teaching us through the Scriptures about the Father and his plan, and he has been teaching us about the Father’s ways.






John 16:26,27



One of the things which Christ is trying to get us, and the Apostles to understand, is that we can feel comfortable in the Father’s presence. This idea was radical because back in the Old Testament they were afraid to be in God’s presence, but God the Father loves us because we love his Son. Always respect God the Father, but as a Christian do not live-in terror of him because in Christ you are accepted and loved by him






John 16:28



When Jesus made plans to come to earth as a baby 2000 years ago, he bought a round-trip ticket because he did not come here to stay forever. Jesus dropped out of eternity, and into time to pay for our sins. When he finished paying for our sins on the cross, he popped out of time, and back into eternity, which happened when he ascended into heaven.






John 16:29,30



Apparently, the light bulb went on in their heads, and they learned something about Jesus that they did not know before, and they felt good about it. For every one thing that we learn about God, there are probably trillions of things that we do not know. The Apostles, just like us, have just begun to scratch the surface of their knowledge of Christ, and of knowing him the way that we will one day know him.






John 16:31,32



Jesus always had the Father. The Apostles are going to panic, and they are going to run, and they will take off on Jesus, and they will leave him alone after he is arrested, but as he says here, the Father is with him. The moment you become a Christian, it is settled, and you will never be alone again, ever because God will never leave you or forsake you, Psalm 27:10 says, “When my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.”



John 16:33



Jesus gives it to us straight because he says that in this world you will have trouble. Jesus gives us straight truth because he does not promise people that everything is going to be wonderful if you follow him, but he lets us decide if we want to follow him or not. If we follow him, we must sacrifice our sins, but at the end of our troubles in this world, like Jesus, we overcome them by going to Heaven.






John 17:1



Jesus is praying for himself, but his motive is not self because he is saying, Father, do this for me so that something good can happen to you. The goal of our prayers should be to see something good happen to God.






John 17:2



If it is made of flesh, Jesus has authority of it. Jesus has the power of choice because he is Almighty God, so he can choose whatever he wants to happen to us. This is a good thing to remember when you are praying to Jesus.






John 17:3



Knowing a lot does not get us into Heaven because it is not how much you know that is important, but it is who you know that gets you into Heaven. When you receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, he puts in a good word for you to the Father, and that is how you get into Heaven.






John 17:4



Jesus completed the work which the Father gave him to do. Jesus lived a sinless life, and he died on the cross to pay for our sins. He finished the Father’s work, and that brought Glory to God, and it was honoring to God. Each time we do something that we know God wants us to do, it is honoring to God.






John 17:5



Jesus had “Glory” with the Father long before he made planet earth, and he wants that Glory restored now. The Glory that he refers to here is Jesus ascending into Heaven after his resurrection, and sitting at the right side of God the Father. The right side of a king is reserved for the person who could step in and take his place. Jesus ascended to the right side of God the Father, and no one can step in for God except God. Jesus was glorified when he took back his position of God.






John 17:6



Jesus says to the Father, concerning the disciples, they have kept the word. Despite all the failures of the Apostles, and of their sins, Jesus gives them credit for keeping God’s word as if they kept it perfectly. Jesus does not say anything about their faith lapses, or their sins, or even their coming desertion. It will be the same with us Christians, meaning that Jesus does not hold our sins against us.






John 17:7



The “everything” which the Father gives to Jesus in this verse refers to the disciples themselves. Jesus is saying these things to the Father in front of his disciples because he is trying to make them feel good, and he is trying to encourage them. Jesus wants his disciples to know that he is talking to the Father about them being handpicked by God, and given to Christ.






John 17:8



Jesus could have given his followers all sorts of material possessions, instead he gave them the best thing possible, meaning that he gave them the word of God, and they accepted it. The word of God is the most valuable thing that you can give the people that you care about.






John 17:9



Jesus prays for his people here, which is what he has been doing. The bible says that he loves to make intercession for us.






John 17:10



Jesus says, all that you have Father is mine, and all that I have is yours, and this is because they are one in every way. When you talk about the Divine nature, you talk about Holiness, and power, and wisdom, and knowledge, and kindness, and justice, and hatred for sin. You are talking about things that are the property of the Father and the Son together. Jesus was glorified through his Apostles, but not because they were perfect because they were not perfect, but because they acknowledged that Jesus was God, and with this, he was honored, and when Jesus is honored, the Father is honored.






John 17:11



Jesus prays for Christians to be “One”, and this is not talking about an ecumenical movement in which Christians throw clear orthodox truth right out the window to get together on some lowest common denominator. Jesus was not praying for every Christian to dot every I or cross every T the exact same way, or to look at every situation in the exact same way. Jesus prays for his people to be One, and we are One because every true Christian believes in the essentials of the faith. The foundational truths of faith that cannot be compromised with if you want to be a Christian, which are that Jesus is God, and that Jesus paid for our sins, and that Jesus is returning, and that his resurrection was physical, and the inerrancy of scripture, and salvation is by faith, and that there is a real Hell.






John 17:12



Jesus kept every single person which the Father gave him, which is why he did not keep Judas because the Father never gave Judas to Jesus. Judas did not want Christ, and Judas did not lose his salvation because Judas was never saved to begin with.






John 17:13



Jesus prays for his people to be filled with joy. God does not want his people to be miserable, and he does not promise us great happiness and everything that we want, but he would like us to be happy because he is a good God.






John 17:14



The word of God is a great source of joy for God’s people. If you are a Christian who loves the word of God, and who lives the word of God, the world is going to hate you. They will hate you just as they hated Jesus because Jesus loved the word, and Jesus lived the word to perfection. The world will hate us as Christians because they are rebels.






John 17:15



This is a wonderful prayer by Jesus for all of us because he prays that we will be protected from Satan. If it was not for the prayers of Christ, Satan would kill every human being the moment that they became a Christian because we are a nuisance to Satan. We are a bigger nuisance to Satan if we live a Holy life by reading the word of God, and praying for people, and by getting the word of God out, and by helping to get the word of God out, so that people can receive Christ. Satan hates Christians with a passion, but the bible says that Satan cannot touch you if you are a Christian without the permission of God.






John 17:16



You are not of this world if you are a Christian, and we may still live here, but we are not citizens of this world anymore. The moment that you repent and receive Christ, you are a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. The longer that you walk with the Lord, and the closer that you get to the Lord, the less you feel at home in this world, but this does not mean that you cannot enjoy certain things in this world, but it means that we become more and more uncomfortable with how this world is.






John 17:17



To be sanctified means to be set apart for God, and to be Holy. The more you are in the word of God, the Holier you will be, and the better you will live, and the more righteous you will be.






John 17:18



Jesus was sent into the world by God the Father, and Jesus represented God the Father to the world, and Jesus revealed God the Father to the world. Christians will never do it as well as Jesus did, but that is what we are called to do. Meaning to read the word, and to live the word, and to show the world what the real God is like.






John 17:19



Jesus sanctified himself for us so that we could be sanctified, meaning that he set himself apart to do the Father’s will, which included the cross, which paid for our sins. When we receive him, we receive forgiveness, and when we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive the power to live for God.






John 17:20



Jesus is praying for us if we are Christians, and “their word” is the New Testament. If you are a Christian, it is only because you believed the message that the Apostles wrote down in the New Testament.






John 17:21



Jesus prays that Christians will be one, and that the church is united, but not in an ecumenical way, where truth is cast aside for unities sake. Real Christians are united, and they are a spiritual unity. The real church is made up of all Christians regardless of their denomination, or what church they go to, so all real Christians are a spiritual unity. Every Christian is a member of the body of Christ.






John 17:22,23



We are united to each other in Jesus Christ with the same kind of unity that exists between the Father and the Son. God the Father loves Christians with the same perfect love by which he loves his Son, The Lord Jesus Christ.






John 17:24



There is that word “they” again, so insert your name and replace “they” with it. Jesus is praying that each of us Christians will be with him in Heaven after we die, and on the New Earth during eternity. God loves us Christians as much as he loves his Son Jesus Christ.






John 17:25



There is not perfect outward unity among all Christians, but every saved person has at least one thing in common, and that is that they know Jesus was sent by God the Father to die on the cross to pay for our sins.



John 17:26



Everyone has a long way to go with perfecting their love for Christ. Jesus has set the standard high, and Jesus wants Christians to love him as much as the Father loves him. To get to this point, we must learn about him by spending time with him, and as you get to know him and your knowledge of him grows, so will your love for him.





John 18:1



It is Thursday night, and the last supper is over, so Jesus and his men leave the upper room, and they walk through the streets of Jerusalem. They leave the city of Jerusalem and walk east to the Mount of Olives. Once they get to the Mount of Olives, they stop at the Garden of Gethsemane, which is on the west slope on the Mount of Olives.






John 18:2



Jesus spent a lot of time in that garden praying; therefore, Judas knew where Jesus would be that night.






John 18:3



This is not the first time that the religious leaders tried to arrest Jesus, but each time that they tried, Jesus would slip through their hands. This time they did not want to take any chances, so they brought a lot of well-armed soldiers with them, as if that could do any good.






John 18:4



Those soldiers did not need all those weapons because Jesus did not put up a fight. Jesus walked out to meet them, and he asked them, who are you looking for?






John 18:5



They answered, Jesus of Nazareth, and Jesus responded by saying, “I am” which is the name of God, and Judas was standing there with them. One of the reasons Judas betrayed Christ, besides being greedy, was because he thought when push came to shove, Jesus would destroy the Romans.






John 18:6



When Jesus said, “I am”, all those soldiers with all their weapons, fell flat on their backs because they were overpowered by the words of Jesus Christ. Christ will go, but not because he must, or is forced to, but he will go because he chooses to.






John 18:7



Notice, how undeterred they are in their evil because Jesus knocked them on their backs by speaking the name of God, but they remain determined to arrest him. Any spiritually sane person would have simply walked away.






John 18:8,9



Notice, how unselfish Jesus is even during these stressful times. Jesus says, ok you are here for me, so let these people go, Jesus’ concern is for his disciples and not for himself. We should never reach the point in our suffering when it is not ok to be concerned about others.






John 18:10



Peter acts without orders from Jesus Christ here, and he tries to kill this soldier with a sword. Peter was no swordsmen, and his ear was not Peters target because Peter was most likely aiming for the soldier’s neck.






John 18:11



Jesus rebukes Peter for his unbiblical zeal. The “cup” is referring to the Cup of Suffering and Death, and it had been given to Jesus by the Father, and he intended to drink all of it. Just like with Peter, Jesus does not want Christians to have unbiblical zeal. Our zeal should be governed by knowledge, so reading the scriptures is important because our zeal should not be governed by our feelings.






John 18:12,13



Jesus went through two trials, meaning a religious trial and a civil trial. This one before the high priest is the religious trial. This trial was an attempt by the Jewish rulers to find Jesus guilty of Blasphemy and Heresy. In other words, claiming to be God and false teaching, but Jesus is innocent of both charges.






John 18:14



Caiaphas oversaw the Spiritual life of the people of Israel. As high priest, he was the guardian of Israel’s soul, but he squandered the most privileged position that any man could possibly have back in those days. Caiaphas is the one who told the council that Jesus needed to die.






John 18:15



John talks about Peter and another disciple, and the other disciple knew Caiaphas, and it was probably John himself, so they both followed Jesus into the palace.






John 18:16



John had to put in a good word for Peter to get him into the courtyard. This was probably the worst thing that he could have done for Peter because it was trouble in disguise. Peter was not ready for this because he was not able to handle it.






John 18:17



It is amazing how Peter was willing to fight several soldiers with his sword in the garden, but he caves before a servant girl. Bravery in the physical realm does not transfer to bravery in the spiritual realm because spiritual warfare is a whole different ball game. To win spiritual battles, it takes prayer, and Peter did not pray in the garden when Jesus told him to pray, instead Peter slept.






John 18:18



Peter is hanging out with the Lord’s enemies, but more importantly he is not taking a stand for Jesus, instead he is trying to hide the fact that he is a follower of Christ. It is good to talk to unsaved people to get the word of God to them, but do not let their sins influence you. It is never good to hide the fact that you are a Christian.






John 18:19



The religious rulers did not have a real case against Christ to arrest him, or to execute him, so they are trying to invent one. They have questions for Jesus concerning his disciples and his teaching. They are hoping to twist the information that Jesus will give them, and use it against him to make it look as if he is violating the Law of Moses.






John 18:20



Jesus says, my teachings have not been done in secret because the religious rulers knew what Jesus taught. Therefore, there was no need for this interrogation because Jesus spoke openly in the synagogues, meaning in the Temple, and in the open for three years.






John 18:21



Jesus says, if you want to know what I have been talking about and teaching, bring in some honest witnesses off the streets to testify. The leaders were not interested in honest witnesses, or even what Jesus taught, so they were not actually interested in truth, or in justice, instead they were only interested in killing him.






John 18:22



One man struck Jesus in the face and rebuked him, and all that Jesus did was give him the truth. When you give snakes the truth, oftentimes they slap you in the face, and that is what they did to Jesus. Jesus’s words made perfect sense, but the rulers were not interested in truth. People who are caught doing something wrong, and who do not repent, usually end up abusing the one exposing them.






John 18:23



Their lack of interest in the truth is obvious. Jesus says, if I have spoken the truth, why did you slap me? They could not prove Jesus’s guilt, and they could not answer his simple honest words. The leaders who have Jesus on trial are the ones on trial, but they do not know it, and they are on trial before God Almighty.






John 18:24



Annas was the former high priest, and Caiaphas is the current high priest. Now, it was Caiaphas’s turn to interrogate Jesus, but John did not record that, so we go back to Peter in the courtyard.






John 18:25



Peter had a strong desire to be accepted by the world, and a strong desire to be accepted by these Christ rejecting sinners. The desire to be accepted by the world is a spiritual killer, and there is no middle ground because you cannot serve God and the world at the same time. If Peter says, yes, I am his disciple, these people will reject him, and there is a good chance that he will get arrested, so he denies Jesus. Anytime we commit a sin, at that moment in time we are more important to ourselves than Almighty God, meaning that we love ourselves more than we love God at that moment.






John 18:26



You just do not forget the face of the man who hacked off your relative’s ear, and this guy remembered Peter as the one who swung the sword.






John 18:27



This happened exactly the way that Jesus had said it would. Jesus said that before the rooster crows three times, you will deny me Peter. Peter did not realize it, but God had him in this circumstance to give him an opportunity to testify. Our circumstances can either be used by God, or by Satan, to either honor Christ, or to dishonor Christ, depending upon how we react.






John 18:28



The religious leaders will not step foot in a Roman palace to talk to the Governor Pontius Pilate about Jesus. They want to talk to Pilate, but they will not step foot into the Roman palace because it is a Gentile Palace, and going in would make them religiously unclean, and if they were unclean, they would not be able to observe the Passover Feast. Meanwhile, they think nothing of slapping the Son of God in the face and plotting his murder, even though they know he is innocent, so they were hypocrites. Nothing hurts the cause of Jesus Christ more than a so-called Christian who has zeal for the church, but no interest in morals.






John 18:29



Notice how Pilate is caving into these religious rulers, meaning that they would not go in to see him, so he comes out to them and asks, what has he done?






John 18:30



They dodged Pilate’s question. They are basically saying, take our word Pilate because he is guilty, so do not ask us anymore of these stupid questions like, what did he do? just execute him.






John 18:31



Rome ruled Israel, so Rome was the only one who could order the execution of a criminal, which is what these religious rulers are saying.






John 18:32



Jesus had predicted how he was going to die, and he had predicted that he would be handed over to the Gentiles in Matthew 20:19, to be killed, and that is what is happening here.






John 18:33



Pilate here, has a private interview with Jesus. Pilate is interested in the charge which the Jews have brought against Christ, which is the one which Jesus claims to be King. Pilate cannot overlook the charge because he would get into trouble with Caeser if he did because Caeser demanded to be everyone’s king without any rivals. Pilate asked Jesus, are you a king? in other words, he was asking, are you plotting to overthrow Caeser?






John 18:34



In other words, Jesus says, did you ask me if I was a king because other people have planted that thought in your mind? or do you have some evidence that I am plotting to overthrow Rome?






John 18:35



Pilate dodged the question, and by dodging Jesus’s question and asking, “Am I a Jew”? Pilate is in effect saying, no I have no knowledge of you plotting to overthrow Rome. If Pilate would have had knowledge of Jesus plotting to overthrow Rome, Pilate would have brought it up, but instead he avoided the question. Pilate is also showing his hate toward the Jews.






John 18:36



Christ is a King, and he is not denying it, but not the kind of King that was a threat to Rome. Jesus’s kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, and not a physical one, and it is not concerned with borders. Jesus is King of all who repent and ask him to be their Lord and Savior.






John 18:37



Jesus did not come to conquer the world with weapons, instead he came to deliver souls with the truth. Jesus says, yes, I am King and for this reason I came into the world to speak truth about God, and Christ, and sin, and Hell, and salvation, and Heaven, and eternity, and the truth about forgiving sins. Jesus came to spread this truth, and those who love truth here his voice.






John 18:38



Pilate seems to be a frustrated man, and he has given up on ever finding truth, and he has given up on ever finding contentment. Pilate lived for his power and authority, but it did not satisfy him because he was empty inside. Pilate asks, what is truth? even though he was staring truth right in the eye, but Pilate was spiritually blind. He went out and told the Jews that he did not find any reason to charge Jesus.






John 18:39



Rome would always release one prisoner during The Passover, so this was Pilate’s big chance to get Christ released because he knew that Christ was innocent. Pilate could release Christ without upsetting the religious rulers because he would not be doing it himself, but he would ask the people if they wanted to release Jesus, and he was sure they were going to say yes.






John 18:40



Here, you see the depravity of man at its very worst, meaning that the people of Israel preferred a rotten sinner above the sinless Son of God because they wanted Barabbas released instead of Jesus.






John 19:1



The floggers would cut deep gashes into the flesh of Christ right down to the bone, and sometimes to the organs. It was wrong for Pilate to have Jesus beaten severely knowing that he was innocent, instead Pilate could have simply released Jesus all by himself, and he did not need anyone’s approval.






John 19:2



Jesus had said that he was King, so these soldiers mocked the Lord’s claim by putting a crown of thorns on his head, and a purple robe onto Jesus.






John 19:3



They mocked Jesus, and they punched him, and the amazing thing is that Jesus Christ created these men. It is mockery whenever we use the good things that God gives us in a way that dishonors him.






John 19:4



Pilate had Jesus nearly beaten to death, and Jesus was crowned with thorns, and he was clothed with a purple robe, and they brought him out in front of the Jews. Pilate says, Jesus has not done anything wrong, so Pilates own words will condemn him for not releasing Christ.






John 19:5



Pilates message to the Jews was, look at him he is just a man, and he is no threat to you Jews, and he is no threat Rome. Pilate wants the Jews to tell him to let Jesus go.






John 19:6



There was no pity from these religious rulers because they were monsters of iniquity. They must have sensed that Pilate thought that Jesus should be set free because they started shouting for his execution. Pilate was sickened by their unreasonable hatred for Christ. Pilate was not dumb, so he knew right from wrong, and he knew Jesus was innocent, but Pilate did not act right, so he told them to execute Jesus themselves.






John 19:7



They did not believe that Jesus was God, even though he proved it. So, they demanded that he be put to death for claiming to be God.






John 19:8



Pilate was already nervous about killing Jesus because he knew Christ was innocent, but now when he hears Jesus’s claim to be God, and the reputation which Jesus had, this had Pilate worried.






John 19:9



Pilate did not act on the clear truth that he already knew, and he knew plenty of truth, so Jesus did not give him anymore truth. The Lord tells us to be careful not to cast out pearls before swine, so at this point, giving Pilate more truth would be casting pearls before swine.






John 19:10,11



Pilate is as arrogant as he is cowardly, so the only thing that he has is arrogance if he believes that the life of Jesus Christ is in his hands because it is not. Jesus says, no one takes my life from me, I lay it down of my own free will. “He that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin”, and this refers to Caiaphas the high priest, and Judas the betrayer, and the Israelites because they are more guilty than Pilate because they all had the scriptures pointing to Jesus as the Messiah, but they rejected him anyway. Pilate was ignorant of these scriptures.






John 19:12



Pontius Pilate was afraid of Caesar, and Pontius Pilate was afraid of the Jewish rulers, but he was most afraid of losing his job. Pilate was an unprincipled, and morally weak man. He was a coward, which is why he is going to give in to the wicked Jewish leaders and have an innocent man executed.






John 19:13



After the religious leaders threaten Pilate with Caesar, he brings Jesus out to the Judgement Seat for the final judgement. The Judgment Seat sat on the floor, and it was made up of small square stones, and the seat was also elevated.






John 19:14



This is strictly mocking the Jews because Jesus is a beaten bloody mess at this point. Pilate just wants to annoy the Jews in any way that he can.



John 19:15



This was a horrible thing to say, “we have no king but Caesar”, so here they disowned Almighty God. God was supposed to be the King of Israel, but they officially renounce God right here as a nation.






John 19:16



Pilate loved the praise of man more than the praise of God, so Pilate would say, let God take the back seat, and let God suffer. It was only important to Pilate if he was comfortable, and if he gets what he wants, so he hands Jesus over to be executed, so that he would not have to deal with this situation anymore.






John 19:17



Back the criminals carried their own crosses to the place of execution, and that is what Jesus did. They would carry their crosses through the streets of Jerusalem, and out to the place where they would be nailed to it. There were reasons Rome had criminals carry their own crosses through the streets, and one reason was that it added to the humiliation of their crucifixion. Another reason was that it gave anyone who knew, or had proof, could step forward and say, “this man is innocent”, which could provide a possible stay of execution. None of this mattered with Jesus because everyone involved already knew that he was innocent, but they did not care.






John 19:18



They crucified Jesus alongside two criminals, and Jesus is God. So, what you see here is Almighty God being tortured by his creation.






John 19:19



This sign was to let everyone know why Rome was crucifying Jesus. The Romans hung a sign for everyone that they crucified on the cross, and it always read what their crime was, and they did it to deter future criminals.






John 19:20



Pilate wanted as many people as he could to know that this was the King of the Jews, so he had it that nailed to Jesus’s cross. This was Pilate’s way of humiliating the Jews.






John 19:21,22



Finally, Pilate shows some backbone because he is not backing down from the sign, so even a coward like Pilate has his limits, and he could only be pushed so far. The Jews wanted Pilate to change the sign, but Pilate tells them, not a chance.






John 19:23



Jesus owned five pieces of clothing, and each one of those four soldiers who participated in the crucifixion had received one piece of his clothing, but there was a fifth piece, which was a long garment, and it was leftover.






John 19:24



The soldiers thought that the smart thing to do would be to gamble for that last piece of clothing, rather than to divide it up, so they rolled dice for it. These soldiers had no idea that they were fulfilling Holy Scripture Prophecy by doing this, which was written 1000 years before it happened.






John 19:25



Four women stood near the cross, and they were Mary his mother, and Mary the wife of a man named Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene, and Salome the mother of James and John, who were two of the Apostles. What you see here is the Ministry of Presence, meaning that there was nothing that they could do, but they were showing their support and concern for Jesus by just being there. Sometimes the best thing that you can do for someone is to just be there for them






John 19:26,27



A case can be made here for Jesus being Mary’s only Son, the word which was translated into the word brother is also the word for cousin because there was no word for cousin. Jesus here is turning his mother over to his disciple John to take care of, so if Jesus had other brothers, he would not be asking John, his disciple, to care for her.






John 19:28



A lot had happened between verses 27 and 28 because three hours have passed, and it was three hours of darkness, and it was during those three hours in which our sins were placed onto Christ. So, during those three hours, he suffered and paid for those sins, and at the end of those three hours, Jesus spoke and said, “I thirst”.






John 19:29



Earlier, Jesus had refused wine and vinegar mixed with gall, and he refused it because gall is a narcotic, meaning a pain killer, and he needed to experience the full force of the pain of the crucifixion to pay for our sins. Here, Jesus takes the vinegar to quench his thirst.






John 19:30



The work of paying for man’s redemption, and paying for man’s sin was finished, so Jesus dismisses his spirit, and he leaves. Jesus left this world by simply dismissing his spirit, and no human being could possibly do this, but he did it because he is God, and because life belongs to him.






John 19:31



The Jews did not think that it would be proper to have men hanging on crosses and being crucified during a Holy Day, like the Sabbath, so they asked Pontius Pilate to have the soldiers smash their legs to finish them off.






John 19:32



The soldiers broke their legs by taking their clubs, and shattering the leg bones of the two criminals that were on either side of Jesus.






John 19:33



These soldiers knew what a dead body looked like, so they took one look at Jesus, and they knew that he was dead, therefore they did not break his legs.






John 19:34



This soldier already knew that Jesus was dead, but for good measure he shoved a spear through Jesus’s heart. The stabbing of the heart was like an exclamation point of the evil of man, and it was one final act of extreme hatred.






John 19:35



The crucifixion, and the fact that Jesus’s legs were not broken because he was already dead, and shoving the spear through Jesus’s heart are all thing that are true. Anyone in John’s Day who had doubts, could have asked John because he was there.






John 19:36



It was predicted in the Old Testament that none of the Savior’s bones would be broken. This was an amazing prediction, considering that he was crucified. Everything happened just as God had said it would, and everything will happen just as God says it will.






John 19:37



That evil soldier, who showed such contempt for God’s Son by shoving that spear through his dead heart, did not know it, but he was fulfilling scripture too. Remember, man has his wickedness, but God has his way.






John 19:38



Joseph of Arimathea was afraid of being ex-communicated from the Jewish religion, and ostracized from his fellow Jews for being a follower of Christ, he, in a cowardly way, kept his faith in Christ a secret, but not anymore because now he is a public follower of Christ. It does not matter what Joseph used to be, instead it only matters what he is now, which is a public servant of Jesus Christ. This holds true for us today, meaning that it does not matter what we used to be, instead it only matters what we are right now.






John 19:39-41



After they prepared Jesus’s body with the oils, and linen, they took him to a new tomb in a garden, which was a rich man’s tomb. That is where they put Jesus, and that was no accident either because it was prophesized in Isaiah 53:9.






John 19:42



One of the reasons they that they put Jesus in that tomb was because it was close. Remember that any part of the day was counted as a full day back in those days, so Jesus was buried on Friday and rose on Sunday, and this fulfilled the prophecy that he would be in the grave for three days.






John 20:1



Mary Magdalene makes her way to the tomb before sunrise on that Sunday. That stone was a multi-ton pancake, and it fit in the groove in front of the entrance of the tomb. It took several soldiers to put it there, but it only took one angel to move it.



John 20:2



The women were at the crucifixion, and the Apostles were hiding, and the women were at the tomb early Sunday, and the Apostles were still hiding in the upper room. What a contrast, and spiritual strength does not have anything to do with muscle strength, but it has everything to do with faith. After visiting the tomb, and seeing the stone moved from the entrance, Mary assumed that someone had taken the body of Jesus, so she runs to tell the others.






John 20:3,4



The “other disciple” is referring to John himself. The missing body seems to have jolted them out of their fear because Peter and John run to the tomb not knowing what to expect. There could have been a bunch of Roman soldiers there, but at this point they did not care.






John 20:5



John reached the tomb first, he bent over and looked in at the tomb and saw the strips of linen just laying still wound in the shape of a body. When Jesus came back, he passed through the linen strips, and they were left there like a hollow shell.






John 20:6,7



When Jesus passed through the strips of linen, he also passed through the head covering, he took the time to fold it and put it in a separate pile. Back in those days when you folded the napkin, like Jesus did, it was saying, I will be back. Later the Jews will claim the disciples stole the body.






John 20:8



John the Apostle now believes that Jesus has been raised, and he believes what Jesus said about coming back on the third day. From the way the linen was, John knew that this was not a grave robbing incident.






John 20:9



John knew that Jesus was back from the dead, and he believed in the resurrection. Peter may or may not have believed it at this point. John was the first to believe in Jesus’s resurrection, but not because of what the bible said, but because of what Jesus himself said. They did not understand the meaning of the Old Testament scriptures at this time, which foretold that the Christ would come back from the dead. They believed because of what Jesus’s own words were.






John 20:10



There was nothing going on at the tomb because the body is gone, and the Roman soldiers who were guarding the tomb are gone. So, Peter and John go and report the empty tomb news to their fellow disciples.



John 20:11



Mary did not leave with Peter and John, instead she stayed by the tomb, and Mary loved much because she had been forgiven much. Mary could not drag herself away from the Lord’s Tomb because this was the last place that she had ever seen the Lord.






John 20:12



Mary is at the tomb all by herself, so she gives the inside of the tomb another look, and there she saw two angels inside sitting in the place where the body of Jesus had been laying. Mary knew that they were angels because when she first arrived there was no one in the tomb, and she knew these two men did not walk by her.






John 20:13



The amazing thing was not that the angels were in the tomb, but that Mary answers their question in a matter-of-fact way, as if seeing two angels in an empty tomb was normal for her. She tells them that she is crying because she thinks that someone has taken away the body of Jesus, and she has no idea where they took it to.






John 20:14



After she answered them, she went to leave, and Jesus appeared to her, but she did not recognize him, and maybe it was because her eyes were so full of tears.






John 20:15



Three times Mary refers to Jesus as “him” because she is so consumed with the Lord Jesus Christ in her mind that she naturally assumed that everyone would know who she was talking about, and who she was looking for.






John 20:16



Mary could not see very well, but she could hear simply fine, and she knew that it was Jesus when he said her name. Jesus came back in that old body of his, but it was raised, and it was much improved, and this could also be the reason that Mary did not recognize him.






John 20:17



Jesus did not just simply say, do not touch me Mary because I have not ascended yet. Jesus is saying, do not hold onto me, meaning that you must let go of me sometime because I am going up to the Father. Jesus also says the disciples are his brothers, and this is the first time that he says this because before he was crucified the disciples were not in the family of God. It took the death of Jesus Christ to pay for our sins, and to make Christians actual children of God (John 1:12).






John 20:18



Mary says, I have seen the Lord, and she was the first one to see him after Jesus was raised. Mary was a former demon possessed sinner, and Mary was saved from a miserable wretched existence by the Lord Jesus Christ. Mary was saved from Hell by Jesus, and this is the reason she is dedicated to Christ. It was this dedication to Jesus which took her to that tomb early Sunday morning, and it kept her at the tomb after the others left, and that is the reason she was in the right place at the right time, and chosen by Christ to be the first person to see him after he rose, and the one he chose to go tell the disciples.



John 20:19



Jesus appears to the Apostles out of nowhere. They are all huddled together in this room and the doors are locked, so nobody can get in or out, and suddenly Jesus is standing there.






John 20:20



When they saw the scars from the nails, they knew beyond all doubt that this whole thing was for real. When we see those nail scars for the first time, it will leave us in awe as well. They were extremely happy to see the Lord.






John 20:21



Jesus says peace be with you, and he could say that because as Christians, we have peace with God because our sins have been paid for, and we have been reconciled to a Holy God. Christians have peace with God, so everything is ok between us and God. We, as Christians, are not to be selfish with the peace which Christ has given us. God wants others who are Hell bound to have that peace as well, so that is the reason he says, “as my father hath sent me, even so I send you”. We are to offer it to lost sinners in Jesus’s name.






John 20:22



They did not receive the Holy Spirit at this time, instead it will be 50 days until the Holy Spirit comes to live inside them. The breathing on them is a symbol of things to come. Jesus breathed on them, and he commanded them to receive the Holy Spirit, and they will obey that command on the Day of Pentecost.






John 20:23



Only Almighty God can forgive sins, however Christ right here did give the Church the authority to declare whether a person’s sins are forgiven or retained. No minister can Judicially forgive someone’s sins, but he can declare the word of God to someone who has confessed their sin. He can say in Jesus’s name, you are forgiven because the bible says if we confess our sins God is Faithful and Just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.






John 20:24



God does not condemn Thomas for not being in the room at this time, and neither should we. We should not condemn anyone simply because they are not doing things as to how we think they should be doing them.






John 20:25



Now, you can slam Thomas, but not because he was not in that upper room, and not because he did not believe the other Apostles, but because he did not believe the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thomas did not believe Jesus’s words about his resurrection, and it is always wrong to not believe the Holy word of God.






John 20:26



It was the same miraculous entrance as eight days prior, meaning that Jesus appears out of nowhere. It was the same greeting of peace, but this time Thomas is there.






John 20:27



Jesus knew that Thomas had doubted him about the resurrection, but Jesus was not mad about it one bit. In a kind way, Christ invited Thomas to examine the proof that he was indeed Jesus Christ. This does not mean that unbelief is ok because not believing the word of God is not ok. God does not like unbelief, but God is patient as we work to overcome those things, and God knows our heart.






John 20:28



Thomas looked, and he knew that it was Jesus, Thomas called Jesus God and Jesus accepted it. If you call somebody God who is not God, that is blasphemy.






John 20:29



Jesus is saying, blessed are those who believe the word of God and do not need extra proof, and they believe it because God’s word says it. When God says something, we honor him by believing it, and we dishonor him by insisting on more evidence than his Holy word.






John 20:30,31



Not all the miracles that Jesus performed are recorded by John in his Gospel, but the Holy Spirit just selected the ones that he knew would convince any seeker of truth that Jesus is God.





John 21:1



The scene now shifts to up north because some of the disciples went back to their homes in Galilee, and Jesus appeared to them while they were there.






John 21:2



Seven of the remaining eleven Apostles are together up north in Galilee.






John 21:3



Peter has been accused of walking away from his calling to preach, and of losing faith, but he only went fishing because he liked to fish. Peter and the other six Apostles went fishing, and on that first night they did not catch anything, and they were up north waiting for Jesus to appear to them.






John 21:4



They did not realize that it was Jesus on the shore, and this might be because it was early in the morning and the sun was not up all the way, and they saw him from a distance. They are tired, so they are coming ashore.






John 21:5



They had been fishing all night, and it is morning now, and they are getting close to the shore, so they are tired and hungry. As they get closer to the shore, there is a man there, and they do not care for his question because they were out fishing all night and they caught nothing, so they gave him a quick, NO!



John 21:6



Jesus knew where the fish were, so he directed his men to them, but the Apostles did not know it was Jesus. It was amazing that they would listen to this stranger, but it was God’s grace that was moving them to do something that they would normally not do because throwing the net over was a tough task to do. The next time that it seems that you have just stumbled into good fortune, simply realize that it was a blessing from God.






John 21:7



This was John discerning again because John was a great discerner. John discerned that it was Christ on the shore. Peter and John were sort of opposites, meaning that John was a thinker, and a slow mover, and a discerner. Peter was a quick mover, and not quite as sharp as John, and he was quick with his actions. So, Peter is the first one to jump into the water, and swim to Jesus. What Peter lacked in discernment, he made up for in zeal, and what John lacked in action, he made up for in thought. This shows that God uses all types of people.






John 21:8,9



By the time that the other Apostles got to the shore with the fish, Jesus already had breakfast all set up for them, and it was ready to be eaten. Jesus made broiled fish and fresh bread. God always supplies what we need, and most of the time he pampers us with much more than we need.






John 21:10



Jesus is making breakfast for them, yet he still says, bring some of the fish that you caught. He did not need their fish, so why did he ask them? Psalm 128:2. It feels good to enjoy something which you worked hard for, and Jesus wants them to enjoy some of the fish that they worked hard for. Therefore, it is important to enjoy the things you have worked for.






John 21:11



This is a double miracle because in those days, fisherman would have to repair their nets after each day’s work because they would always rip, but this time, even though they had a net full of fish, the net did not break. The first miracle was of course, all the fish that they had caught.






John 21:12



Jesus looked a little different, as we would expect because his body is new, and he was raised from the dead. Jesus was Jesus, and none of them doubted that when he told them to come eat.






John 21:13



Notice how good Jesus was to these men because Jesus provided the fish, he broiled it, and he made them bread, and he set them a place to eat, and he served them. It was Almighty God being a waiter, so what a kind God we have, and a giving God. Christians do not have to be Holy for God, but we should want to be.






John 21:14



This was the third time that Jesus appeared to them; the first time was resurrection Sunday evening, and seven days later when Thomas was present, and now this time up north here in Galilee.









John 21:15



Jesus is asking Peter if he loved him more than the other disciples. Jesus asked this because he remembered how Peter had boasted during the last supper when Jesus announced that all his disciples would run off and abandon him. Peter had said that he would not run off, implying that he loved Jesus more than the other disciples, but Peter denied Christ three times, and the other disciples only denied Jesus once by running off. Peter’s answer was literally, I like you a lot, Peter’s failure really humbled him, and Peter loves the Lord, but he knew he did not act loving to him, so he will not boast of it anymore. Jesus is saying if you love me take care of my people and watch over those who belong to me. As Christians, a good way to show Christ you love him, is to be good to his followers.






John 21:16



Jesus asked him a second time, Peter do you love me? and again Peter basically said, yes, I like you a lot. Peter used to think his love for the Lord was strong, and it still was, but in the garden, he did not act like it, so he refuses to boast about it. Once again Jesus says, take care of my sheep. God’s people need to be cared for by ministers who love the Lord. A minister who loves himself, or the people more he loves God, is not a good minister or teacher. Adam loved his wife more than he loved God, so he did what she wanted, and the results were sin in this world.






John 21:17



Jesus asked Peter a third time, Peter do you love me? and this time Peter was hurt. Peter said, Lord you know all things, so you know I love you, again Jesus said, feed my sheep. Three times Peter publicly denied the Lord Jesus Christ on the night that Jesus was betrayed, so here Jesus gave him the opportunity to publicly affirm his devotion to him. Once again Jesus says, if you love me take care of my people. Love for Christ is the only acceptable motive for serving Christ.






John 21:18



In other words, Jesus says, Peter it is not always going to be as it has been for you because you have always been able to dress as you want, and go where you want, but it is not going to always be that way. Jesus is saying, Peter, toward the end of your life, you are going to be arrested and bound and crucified. Like Jesus, Peter now knew how he would die.






John 21:19



In the past, Peter had failed the Lord, but Christ did not discard him because of his failure because he knew Peter’s heart. In the past, Peter denied Christ to avoid persecution, but in the future Peter will not fail Jesus. God is going to give Peter the courage to live for his Savior, and to die for his Savior, and in the process, Peter will glorify God. Whatever type of life God chooses for us does not have to be wasted because by God’s grace, you can face it with faith, and God will use it as a testimony. Whatever kind of death God has chosen for us, it does not have to be wasted because by God’s grace, we can face it, and by God’s grace, he will use it as a final testimony.






John 21:20



Peter is following Christ, but he gets sidetracked when he sees the Apostle John.






John 21:21



In other words, is John going to die for you too? What will his future be like? Peter asks.






John 21:22



In other words, Jesus says, Peter it is none of your business. Christ did not want Peter thinking about what might happen to John because it is not Peter’s concern. Jesus wanted Peter to think about what God wanted Peter to do. Every Christian should mind their own business and do do what God wants them to do.






John 21:23



Jesus was misunderstood, and Jesus was misquoted. People were running around saying, Jesus said that John would never die, but all Jesus said was that if he wanted John to live until the day he came back, it was no one else’s business. They added to the word of Christ, and they were spreading these falsehoods about the words of Jesus.






John 21:24



John says, I saw everything, and I heard everything that I have written down in this book, in all 21 chapters. I am an eyewitness to everything which I wrote, and it can be trusted.






John 21:25



John is not exaggerating one bit when he says that there would not be enough room for the books that would be needed to write down everything that Jesus said and did. As the eternal God, his words are endless, as Almighty God, the second person of the Trinity, who has always been, there is no limit to the things that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has done.