Now we will take a look at the main point of each chapter in the Gospel of John. We will first look at the first half of the book, chapters one through thirteen. Chapter one is a general outline, telling us in summary that the Lord was the Word in the beginning. A person’s words are his explanation; therefore, the Lord is the explanation of God, the expression of God. No one has ever seen God; only He has declared God (v. 18). In Him was life (v. 4). One day He became flesh and tabernacled among men to bring life to man (v. 14).
Chapters two through thirteen show us how He meets man’s every need and solves all of man’s problems. We need to see that in the universe God wants to build Himself into man and build man into Himself. God wants man to be His dwelling place, and He also wants man to take Him as his dwelling place. However, the man whom God wants to build up to become His dwelling has all kinds of needs and problems. I would ask you brothers and sisters to consider this: God wants to dwell in you as His dwelling place, and He also wants you to dwell in Him as your dwelling place. However, what kind of persons were you formerly? I believe we all have to say from our heart that before we were saved, our true condition was wretched. We were useless materials. Please remember that after John gives us a general outline in chapter one, he goes on in chapters two through thirteen to describe how the man that God wants to build up is wretched and full of needs and problems. He also speaks of how God became man’s life to meet man’s needs and solve his problems.
Chapter two speaks about the first sign the Lord performed, which is the changing of water into wine. Here the wedding feast signifies the pleasure of human life, and the wine signifies man’s life. Just as the pleasure of the wedding feast depends upon wine, so the pleasure of human life depends upon life. Just as the wine will run out, so man’s life will come to an end and be finished. Therefore, John 2 tells us that the first condition of man is that his life will run out and come to an end. If you observe all the happenings among men, you will realize that the most miserable thing is that man’s life runs out. Do you have a Ph.D.? One day your Ph.D. will still be here, but you will be gone. Maybe you are a millionaire; one day your riches will still be here, but you will be gone. Oh, there is an end to man’s life! You may have many sons and daughters and many grandchildren, but one day your life will run out and be ended. This is man’s first condition. Before we were saved, the first condition was that we were men whose life runs out.
There was a custom in my hometown that those who were wealthy would almost always have at least one top-quality coffin in their living room, prepared for the elderly ones in the family. When I was a child, coffins were the most frightening things to me, so I did not like going into others’ living rooms. I cannot imagine the thoughts of those who have prepared a coffin for themselves when they see the coffin every day. Every day the coffin waits for them to come in and lie down.
This is the condition of human life. Man eats, drinks, and enjoys on the earth, attending a “wedding feast,” but man is in death; his life will run out. Therefore, the Lord Jesus came to meet this need of man, to solve this problem. He used the sign of changing water into wine to reveal that He is the Lord of life. He is able to change the water of death into the wine of life. He is life, and He has come that man may have life (10:10). Therefore, in God’s coming to be man’s life, first He solves the problem of man’s life running out.
Chapter three speaks about a moral man, a gentleman, one who feared God and endeavored to do good to please God. This is also a condition of man. I believe that many brothers and sisters were more or less in this kind of condition before. You tried to be virtuous and endeavored to do good. Although you would inevitably sin, at the same time you liked to do good to please God. However, the Lord who comes to be man’s life shows us that this kind of doing good is useless. Man’s problem before God is not a matter of doing good but a matter of being regenerated, receiving God into himself as life.
Therefore, regardless of how good a person is, he still needs to receive the life of God that he may be regenerated. It is not a matter of behavior but altogether a matter of life. It is not a matter of doing good or doing evil but a matter of whether or not one has received God as life to be regenerated. What man lacks is not behavior but life. Man’s problem lies not in behavior without but in life within. God coming to be man’s life is to solve man’s problem of life.
Chapter four is a picture portraying thirst. We see a thirsty Lord asking for a drink and a thirsty sinner drawing water for a drink. The Lord is thirsty, and the sinner is also thirsty. This is another condition revealing that the man God desires to build is a thirsty person.
Everyone would agree that human life is a thirsty life. I believe that everyone has had this experience of being thirsty. If you were not thirsty, you would not have sought the Lord. In John 4 the Lord reveals that He is the living fountain. He is not Jacob’s well. The water from Jacob’s well cannot quench thirst; whoever drinks of it will thirst again. The Lord is the fountain of living water; whoever drinks of Him shall by no means thirst forever (vv. 13-14). God comes to be man’s life so that those whom He builds will not thirst again, but the water He gives them will become in them a fountain of water gushing up into eternal life (v. 14).
Now we come to chapter five. In this chapter we see a man who had been thirty-eight years in his sickness, lying and unable to move. This was an impotent man who wanted to move but lacked the strength, being unable to achieve what he desired to do. This exposes the condition of man’s impotence. I believe we all realize that we were the same way in the past. We truly desired to do good, but we could not do good. We really wanted to move, but we could not move. We were truly people who were paralyzed, paralytics who had been in that sickness for a long time. This is another condition of man. However, God comes into man to be man’s life, causing one who is weak to become strong and one who cannot move to be able to move. Formerly we lay on the mat and were carried by the mat; now we carry the mat and walk back home.
How do we receive the Lord as life? We receive the Lord as life through His word. The Lord said, “The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (v. 25). To receive the word of the Son of God is to receive the Son of God Himself. Whoever receives the Son of God passes out of death into life. This causes the weak ones to become strong. Since death is the greatest weakness, when life comes in, weakness goes out.
Chapter six speaks of a crowd longing to be fed. This picture clearly portrays the condition of man’s hunger. The Lord said, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall by no means hunger” (v. 35), “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (v. 57), and “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (v. 63). These words tell us that if man receives and enjoys the Lord, he will be satisfied with food.
Chapter seven speaks about religion. The Jews were holding the Feast of Tabernacles, and on the last day of the feast, the Lord Jesus cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (v. 37). This shows us that religion cannot quench man’s thirst forever. While man may have a religion, a belief, and may joyfully participate in religious feasts, still there is a last day of the feast; there is an end. On the last day of the feast, the end of the feast, man is still thirsty. Therefore, the Lord said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water” (vv. 37-38). Not only is man himself no longer thirsty, but he can even quench others’ thirst. This is another condition of man and the solution God brings by coming to be man’s life.
Some brothers and sisters may have been religionists who celebrated religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter. You might have felt very joyful while celebrating a feast, but when it ended, you felt that religion could not quench your thirst. Only the God who comes to be man’s life can quench man’s thirst within and even cause him to become rivers of living water, overflowing living water to satisfy and supply others.
Chapter eight gives the record of a sinful woman who committed the most immoral and defiling sin. The Jews said that according to the law of Moses, she should be stoned to death. This shows that the law condemns sinners to death. However, this God who comes to be man’s life is able to save sinners from being slaves of sin. This is also a condition of man and the Lord’s solution.
Chapter nine shows us another condition of man—blindness. Brothers and sisters, you should confess that in the past you were blind (I believe that you will not be offended by this). Each one of us used to live and flounder about blindly in this sinful world. We did not know God, and we did not know the eternal things. However, ever since the God who comes into man to be man’s life came into us, He enlightened our inner eyes.
When the Lord opened the eyes of the blind man, He did it by anointing his eyes with spittle and clay and sending him to wash in the pool of Siloam, and he washed and came away seeing. In the past when I read that passage I did not understand the meaning; it seemed like a child’s game. As I gradually came to understand the mingling of God and man, I understood what this meant. The clay is we human beings, because human beings are made of clay; we are all a clod of clay. What proceeds out of the Lord’s mouth are His words, which are the Lord Himself. The Lord comes to mingle with us clay men. This is the mingling of God and man. This mingling causes us who are blind to be able to see.
Brothers and sisters, if within you there is no mingling with God, you will forever be blind. But when God Himself mingles with you, a clay man, through the words that proceed out from His mouth, your eyes are opened. Therefore, another condition of man is that he was born blind. There is the need for the God who comes to be man’s life to enter into man, to mingle with man, so that man’s eyes may be opened and enlightened.
Now we come to chapter ten. Chapter ten and chapter nine are related to the condition of man in two aspects. One aspect is his being blind; the other aspect is his being lost. Those who are blind are those who are lost; they are sheep without a shepherd. The Lord of life is the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep that the sheep might receive His life. He came that the sheep may have life. With any sheep that receives Him as life, on the one hand, his eyes are opened, being able to see, and on the other hand, he is returned to the flock to be under His hand, His shepherding.
I love hymn #44 in the Chinese hymnbook. The first stanza says that we bless the name of our Father as children taught by grace and we rejoice that because of His life we were brought back to the flock. This is exactly what John 10 says. Once His life comes into us, it causes us to return to the flock. We were formerly lost sheep; it was by His life coming into us that we became sheep belonging to the flock and being shepherded under the hand of the good Shepherd.
Chapter eleven speaks about a man who was sick and later died, was buried in the tomb, and even smelled. Yet the Lord who came to be man’s life caused him to be raised from the dead, come out of the tomb, and be freed from all bondage. This tells us that the man God desires to build was formerly in death and in the tomb but is now enlivened by God entering into him.
Chapter twelve does not mention a particular condition of man. The main point in this chapter is a word spoken by the Lord: “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (v. 24). The Lord in saying this tells us that He had to go through death and resurrection to impart His life to man, that is, to impart Himself as life into man, in order to meet all of man’s needs as mentioned above.
Now we come to chapter thirteen. Chapter thirteen, which is a conclusion to the first half of the Gospel of John, shows us that the Lord, who comes to be man’s life to solve all his problems and meet his every need, loves those who are His own and who receive His supply, and He cares for them to the uttermost. In this way they can become materials for His building to be built up by Him as His Body and the dwelling place of God.
This chapter starts by saying that the Lord, having loved His own who were in the world, loved them to the uttermost (v. 1). This means that He would bear all of their responsibilities. Then chapter thirteen goes on to relate the account of the Lord washing the feet of the disciples. This account reveals that He cares for those whom He loved, redeemed, regenerated, gained, and is building and bears their responsibility to the uttermost. If a person is willing to wash your feet, that is an indication that there is nothing else he would not do for you. This God who comes to be man’s life cares for you and bears full responsibility for you. This is the content of chapter thirteen.
Now let us briefly reiterate. Chapter two tells us that man’s life runs out; chapter three, that man needs to be born again; chapter four, that man is thirsty; chapter five, that man is impotent; chapter six, that man is hungry; chapter seven, that religion cannot quench man’s thirst; chapter eight, that man lives in sin; chapter nine, that man is blind; chapter ten, that man is lost; chapter eleven, that man is dead; chapter twelve, that the Lord must impart His life to man; and chapter thirteen, that man needs the Lord’s care and the Lord cares for man to the uttermost. These reveal the conditions and needs of the man whom God desires to build up.
Since the man whom God desires for His building is in such a condition, He needs to solve these problems and meet these needs for man. Thank the Lord that His coming to be man’s life is to meet man’s every need and solve all of man’s problems. He can change the life that runs out into one that does not run out. Once He enters into man, He causes man to be regenerated. He alone is the living water that causes man to not thirst forever. He is also the bread of life that causes man to hunger nevermore. If a man lives by Him, He causes rivers of living water to flow out of his innermost being to water and satisfy others. He can make the weak strong. He releases and frees man from sin so that he is no longer a slave of sin. He gives sight to the blind and brings the lost back to His flock under His shepherding. He resurrects the dead and sets them free. He can do all of these things by imparting His life to man, and He cares for man to the uttermost, bearing all of man’s responsibility.
In brief, therefore, the first half of the Gospel of John tells us that God came among men to be built together with men. The Lord’s becoming flesh was His tabernacling among men. The Lord’s body was the tabernacle. Later, the Lord Himself also said that His body was a temple, and although man would destroy the temple, He would raise it up again by His death and resurrection. Then the temple would be enlarged, not limited to Himself alone. In resurrection He comes into many people to be mingled with them; this is His building of the temple. However, since the people whom He is building are full of all kinds of problems, beginning from chapter three John shows us how He solves all of their problems and meets their every need by coming into them to be their life.