Latest / Reformed Thinking / Life in the Son: How John Portrays the Saving King (John; 1–3 John) | Thomas R. Schreiner

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Life in the Son: How John Portrays the Saving King (John; 1–3 John) | Thomas R. Schreiner · Reformed Thinking

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  Yeah, brief audio intro, reformed thinking.
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  Welcome back to The Deep Dive. Today we've gathered some really
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  excellent sources focusing on the Apostle John.
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  We're looking at Thomas Shriner's analysis of John's
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  Gospel and his letters. Yeah, and the goal is to step
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  away from the synoptics, Matthew, Mark and Luke for a
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  bit. Right.
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  To really zero in on what makes John's witness to Christ so, so
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  different, so powerful. That's really the mission for us
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  today. We want you, the listener, to
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  get a handle on the unique features of Johannian theology.
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  We're talking about his Christology, his view of
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  eschatology, and, you know, the very nature of belief and.
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  We're going to try and do it quickly, but without, you know,
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  skipping the important stuff. Exactly.
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  And John has this incredible way of being both simple and
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  incredibly deep at the same time.
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  So we're structuring this whole deep dive around what might be
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  Jesus's most direct claim. I am the way and the truth and
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  the life. OK, so we're looking at how John
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  shows us Jesus as the king and how he's sort of recalibrates
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  these classic themes, the Kingdom life, the Old Testament
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  promises. But I think to really get what
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  John is doing, we have to start with the foundation the
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  Synoptics laid first. We have to.
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  Yeah, the Synoptics all show this one central conviction.
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  The king has come. Jesus of Nazareth.
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  Jesus of Nazareth. He's the Son of Man, the Son of
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  God, the Messiah of the Lord. He's the fulfillment of that
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  promise to David that a king from his line would rule
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  forever. And because of his death and
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  resurrection, he now reigns. He's established his kingship.
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  And if the king has arrived, that means the Kingdom has well,
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  it's broken into history. It's not just a future thing
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  anymore, right? The age to come has invaded our
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  current age and you see the evidence for this all through
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  Jesus ministry. I mean, think about the miracle,
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  the. Healings.
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  The exorcisms. All of it.
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  They're not just, you know, random displays of power.
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  They're signs. They're previews of the new
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  creation. When Jesus casts out a demon,
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  he's showing the kingdom's authority over Satan's domain.
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  When he heals someone, it's a little glimpse of the day when
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  there won't be any more sickness.
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  And this new Kingdom needs a new people, a restored people.
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  The sources point out that the 12 apostles are meant to
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  represent that a new Israel. A restored Israel.
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  Yeah. And then almost immediately,
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  that restoration starts expanding.
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  Luke, especially in Acts, just hammers his home.
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  The old split between Israel and Judah is healed when the
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  Samaritans are brought in in Acts 8.
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  And then the Gentiles, which must have been just, I mean,
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  shocking. Completely is the fulfillment of
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  the promise made all the way back to Abraham.
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  And so discipleship in that context means repentance, faith,
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  submission to Jesus as Lord, and, you know, bearing fruit.
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  So that's our synoptic starting point.
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  OK, great. So let's turn to John.
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  Let's unpack that first big difference.
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  You mentioned the shift from this focus on Kingdom to John's
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  focus on life. Yeah, this is really surprising
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  when you first notice it. The Kingdom, the bazlaya, it's
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  so central to Matthew, Mark and Luke.
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  But John, he only uses the word five times.
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  Five times in the whole gospel. That's it.
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  Twice with Nicodemus and then three times when he's talking to
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  Pilate during the trial. So if he's barely using the word
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  Kingdom, does that mean he's kind of dropping that whole
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  theme, the future restoration, the eschatological hope?
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  Not at all. It's more that John is writing a
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  bit later. He's had time to reflect on what
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  all these events mean. So his gospel is more
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  theological, more discursive. He hasn't ditched the
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  eschatological framework. He's just shifted it.
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  He's shifted it. He's focused it like a laser on
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  the main result of the kingdom's arrival, which is life.
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  Specifically, eternal life. And yeah, if you just run the
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  numbers, it's not even close. He uses the word for life.
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  Zooth 32 times, eternal life 17 times.
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  It's a huge change in emphasis. And we have to be clear, this
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  eternal life is an eschatological term.
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  It's talking about the quality of life in the age to come.
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  You know, the life of the new creation where death is gone.
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  And the Synoptics already made this link, right?
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  Oh yeah, they definitely connect the two.
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  In Matthew 19, the rich young ruler asks about getting eternal
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  life, and Jesus immediately starts talking about inheriting
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  the Kingdom. They're treated as equivalents.
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  John just makes life the main thing.
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  Even in that conversation with Nicodemus in John Three, it
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  moves right from entering the Kingdom to believing to receive
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  eternal life. So John's big contribution isn't
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  really the promise of a future life, it's more about the nature
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  of that life and where it comes from right now.
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  Precisely. This life is tied to the Old
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  Testament promise of resurrection.
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  You see it in Isaiah 26, Daniel 12.
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  But what John stresses is that you get this resurrection life
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  before you physically die. Jesus says in John 5.21 that He
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  gives life and having that spiritual life right now is what
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  guarantees you'll have a physical resurrection later.
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  He says so clearly to Martha. I am the resurrection of the.
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  Life and this gets us to that idea.
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  Scholars talk about John's what was it realized eschatology.
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  That's the term, yeah. It means the life of the age to
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  come is something believers have in the present, and the only
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  reason that's possible is because Jesus defeated death.
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  Right, so John 10.28 they have eternal life present tense.
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  Exactly. Or look at John 5.24.
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  It's an incredible statement. Those who believe have already
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  passed from death to life. It's a done deal.
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  It's not something you're waiting for.
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  This present possession of life is a key part of John's
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  theology. It's the basis for our
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  assurance. And this carries right over into
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  his letters into first John. It does.
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  I mean, the whole point of first John is assurance.
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  He says he's writing so that his readers can know that they have
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  eternal life. And he makes it clear this isn't
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  some abstract idea. Life showed up in history in the
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  person of Jesus, the one they saw and heard and touched.
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  Life is Christ Himself. But then you have that tension.
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  If believers have eternal life now, why is there still sin?
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  Why do we still suffer That already not yet thing is still
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  there. Absolutely.
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  First, John 2.8 says the darkness is passing away and the
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  true light is already shining. It's passing, but it's not gone.
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  The world is passing away, but the final day when Jesus
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  appears, that hasn't happened yet.
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  John's genius, though, is to put the emphasis on the already on
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  the present possession of life, which gives you this solid
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  confidence about the future. OK, so let's tie this life back
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  to its source, who John calls the Suffering King.
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  The whole purpose of his gospel is that belief in Jesus as the
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  Christ, the Son of God, leads to life.
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  But the way he presents that kingship is, well, it's a
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  paradox. It really is.
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  The title king in John's Gospel shows up almost entirely in the
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  passion narrative. I think it's 14 times right in
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  the middle of his suffering and death.
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  So it immediately messes with your idea of a political,
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  military kind of king. It completely subverts it.
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  Jesus is a humble king. He wins not with violence, but
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  by choosing to suffer. His entry into Jerusalem on a
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  donkey makes that so clear, fulfilling that prophecy from
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  Zechariah. And the details in the trial
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  with Pilate and the Jewish leaders, they're just dripping
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  with irony. John turns that irony all the
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  way up. You have Pilate sarcastically
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  asking him. So you are a king, but the real
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  gut punch is the rejection by the Jewish leaders, the very
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  people who had waited for the king for centuries.
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  Yeah, when they shot, we have no king but Caesar.
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  It's just a staggering moment. They choose the Roman occupier
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  over their own Messiah. It's a tragedy.
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  And yet, who's the one who puts the title on the cross pilot?
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  Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.
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  An unwitting proclamation of the truth.
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  Exactly. John's point is that the
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  crucifixion didn't disqualify Jesus from being the Messiah.
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  The cross is his messiahship. He's the King who buys his
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  people through his own suffering.
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  And this suffering kingship is tied to the highest possible
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  claim he can make, being the Son of God.
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  In John's Gospel, that title points straight to his deity.
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  John 3.18 connects belief in the name of the only Son of God
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  directly with having life, and his authority as the Son is
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  shown by his ability, ability to do what only God can do.
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  Like raising the. Dead, raising the dead, both
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  spiritually and physically, and only the Son can grant freedom
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  from sin. And you can see that the Jewish
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  leaders understood what he was claiming because their reaction
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  is always blasphemy. They immediately try to stone
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  him. The title Son of God means he
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  demands the same honor as the Father.
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  John 5.23 says almost honor the Son as they honor the Father.
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  There's no room to lessen the glory due to the Son.
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  This High Christology gets another layer with the theme of
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  the Father sending the Son. Right, John says 6 times the
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  father sent the son. That implies he existed before
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  he came. He's the Mono genus, the unique
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  son. He comes from God and he goes to
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  God. This isn't just a human being
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  with a mission, it's a divine appointment.
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  And then in first John, this idea of the sun coming in the
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  flesh, the incarnation, becomes the absolute test of true faith.
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  He calls people who deny it antichrists.
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  It's a critical line in the sand for John.
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  Why is his humanity so non negotiable?
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  Because if you deny that Jesus was a real, physical human
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  being, you lose the cross. You lose the Atonement.
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  You lose the Atonement. John ties forgiveness directly
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  to the blood of Jesus. If that wasn't a real human
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  death, then the forgiveness isn't real.
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  The whole basis for salvation just falls apart.
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  So his humanity is essential for the sacrifice.
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  What about that third title, Son of Man?
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  It shows up 13 times, and it's rooted in that vision of
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  authority from Daniel 7. How does John use that?
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  In John, the Son of Man, title is almost always connected with
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  movement, ascending, descending, and most of all being lifted up.
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  The word is hip, so. Right.
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  And he connects that lifting up directly to the cross.
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  Being lifted up on that cross is his path to exultation and
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  authority. So the cross is his triumph.
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  It's his glorification. It's his finest hour.
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  Where the world sees shame, God sees the ultimate act of
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  obedient victory if it fills Isaiah 52, the suffering servant
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  being exalted. So you have all three titles,
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  Messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, and they all meet right there at
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  the cross, showing how He secured eternal life through His
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  suffering kingship. That's a perfect transition to
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  our second pillar, Jesus as the truth.
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  This is where John shows Jesus as the final definitive
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  revelation, the fulfillment of everything in the Old Testament.
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  And it has to start with Jesus as the Word, the Logos.
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  It has to. I mean, the opening of his
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  gospel is just stunning. In the beginning was the Word,
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  and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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  That, in the beginning, is a direct echo of Genesis.
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  One, it's intentional. He's establishing the Word as
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  eternal, as tree existent. The Word is the agent of
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  creation, just like the sovereign Word of God in the
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  songs that spoke everything into being.
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  But takes it further than any Jewish ideas about wisdom or the
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  Word had before. He does.
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  He introduces this this complexity into the identity of
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  God. He says the word was with God,
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  so he's distinct. But then he says the word was
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  God, so he's also identified as God.
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  And then his divine eternal word became flesh.
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  And I love this word eskonsen. He tabernacled among us.
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  He pitched his tent. He pitched his tent.
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  It connects Jesus directly to the physical presence of Yahweh
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  dwelling with Israel in the wilderness.
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  And the whole point of the incarnation is revelation.
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  The Word became flesh to explain the invisible God.
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  When Jesus says if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, he's
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  claiming to be God's final and complete message.
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  He is the truth about God. And this claim to be the truth
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  gets amplified in those I am statements.
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  The ego Amy. These are just staggering claims
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  to be God. They are when he uses ego Amy in
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  that absolute way he's drawing right from Exodus 3 I am W Ojo I
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  am, and from Isaiah where he always says I am he.
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  For a 1st century Jew that is a direct claim to be Yahweh.
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  That's why they pick up stones. He's revealing that the one God
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  has this dimension, the Son that wasn't fully seen in the Old
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  Testament. And these huge claims are never
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  just, you know, abstract theological points.
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  They're always tied to salvation.
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  He's always showing how this truth saves.
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  Let's walk through them. First, the bread.
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  I am the bread of life. He says this right after feeding
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  the 5000. He contrasts himself with the
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  manna in the wilderness that manic at people alive for a day,
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  but they still died eventually. Jesus is the true bread.
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  And then he uses that really graphic language.
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  You have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.
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  He's stressing that you have to take his atoning death into
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  yourself through faith. That's the real food for eternal
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  life. OK, Next up light.
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  I am the light of the world. This fulfills all those Old
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  Testament hopes of a messianic light.
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  And then John immediately gives us a story to show what he means
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  the healing of the man born blind in Chapter 9, Jesus gives
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  him physical sight and then more importantly, spiritual sight.
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  While the. Pharisees who claim to see are
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  shown to be blind. Exactly, and This is why he
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  gives that stark warning. If you don't believe that I am,
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  you will done in your sins. And that most direct claim comes
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  in John 8. Before Abraham was I am.
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  That's the one. There's no ambiguity there.
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  It's a direct claim to be the eternal God, and they react
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  instantly by trying to execute him.
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  But even that claim is in the middle of a talk about about
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  freedom from sin. Then he calls himself the
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  Sovereign Shepherd. I am the Good Shepherd and also
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  I am the door. This points straight to Ezekiel
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  34 where God himself promised to be Israel Shepherd.
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  So Jesus is claiming to be both Yahweh and the Davidic King who
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  rules the flock. He's the only way in the only
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  door, and he proves he's the Good Shepherd because he lays
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  down his life for the sheep. And his claim to be the
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  resurrection and the life is maybe the strongest link back to
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  our first point about life. It is when he's talking to
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  Martha, she says she believes in a future resurrection.
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  You know, a general one at the end of time.
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  And Jesus basically says that future has arrived in me.
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  The power of the age to come is present in his person.
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  If you believe in Him, even if you die, you will live.
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  And finally, he redefines the people of God by saying He is
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  the true Israel. I am the true vine.
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  Again, you have to know the Old Testament.
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  Isaiah 5 describes Israel as God's vineyard, but it was a
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  vineyard that failed. Jesus says I am the new center.
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  True Israel isn't about your bloodline anymore.
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  It's about being connected to Him, abiding in Him, and obeying
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  Him. He is the new Covenant people.
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  So beyond these personal I am claims, he also shows he's the
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  truth by, well, by replacing some of Israel's most central
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  institutions. Let's start with the Temple.
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  The cleansing of the temple in John 2.
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  It's not just him being angry. It's a prophetic act of
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  judgement. When they challenge him, he says
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  destroy this temple and he's talking about his own body.
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  His opponents did in fact destroy that temple by killing
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  him. But he raised up the new temple,
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  his resurrected body, in three days.
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  So the application of that is huge.
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  It's massive. Remember back in John one it
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  says he tabernacled among us. If you're with Jesus, you are in
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  the presence of God. The physical location of the
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  temple in Jerusalem, as he tells the Samaritan woman, it just
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  doesn't matter anymore. Worship is now in spirit and
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  truth because Jesus himself is the place where God dwells.
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  And he does the same thing with the Sabbath.
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  He does when he heals the man at the pool in the Sabbath in
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  Chapter 5 and the leaders challenge him.
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  He doesn't get into a technical rabbinic debate about the rules.
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  He just says my father is working until now and I am
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  working. Which is another claim to deity.
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  It's a massive claim to deity. He's saying that the true rest,
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  the wholeness that the Sabbath pointed to, is now found in him.
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  And in Chapter 9, when he heals the blind man, he deliberately
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  makes mud on the Sabbath. He could have just spoken a
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  word. He's deliberately provoking
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  them. He's making a point.
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  He's showing that he is superior to the institution, The
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  wholeness, the true rest, it's found in the Son of Man who is
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  the light of the world, the grace that comes through.
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  Jesus has superseded the law. He is the complete and final
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  truth. Which brings us to our final
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  pillar, Jesus as the way. If he is the only way to God,
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  then everything has to center on the cross as the means of
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  getting there. That's right.
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  For John, believing in Jesus means believing in the
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  crucified. 1 And it starts with John the Baptist, calling him
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  the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
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  Which, given the context and John, almost certainly means the
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  Passover. Lamb.
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  It's the most likely meaning, yeah.
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  John structures his narrative around the Passover feasts.
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  Just like the blood of the lamb in Egypt saved Israel from
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  wrath, Jesus's death liberates us from sin and from the wrath
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  of God. His death is a propitiation.
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  Let's just pause on that word because it's so key, especially
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  in a reformed understanding. What does it mean that Jesus is
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  the propitiation for our sins? It means his death satisfied
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  God's justice. God is holy and sin must be
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  punished. Propitiation means that on the
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  cross, Jesus took the punishment that we deserved.
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  God's righteous anger against sin was poured out on him so
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  that it could be turned away from us.
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  It's not just that God decided to forgive, it's that God
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  provided the perfect sacrifice so that He could forgive justly,
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  upholding both His love and His Holiness.
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  And this makes that paradox of the cross, shame becoming
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  triumph even more powerful. It does.
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  John uses that term lifting up hip.
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  So for the crucifixion, the act of dying is the act of being
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  exalted. He compares it to the bronze
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  serpent in the wilderness. The people were dying from snake
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  bites and they had to look at this image of the very thing
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  that was killing them in order to be saved.
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  A counter intuitive way to be saved.
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  Totally, and in the same way we have to look in faith to the
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  crucified one, the one who bore our curse to receive life.
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  His being lifted up on the cross is the path is being lifted up
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  to God's right hand. And John calls his death his
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  glorification. Yes, drawing on Isaiah 52, in
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  John 12 Jesus says the hour has come for the Son of Man to be
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  glorified. His death isn't a moment of
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  shame, it's his moment of triumph.
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  When he is lifted up, He will draw all people to himself.
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  The only way to God is through the cross.
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  Which leads to another huge theme, divine sovereignty.
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  The King's death was not an accident.
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  Not at all. It was God's destined hour.
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  The horror. It was a time fixed by the
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  Father's will, and Jesus embraced it.
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  He talks about drinking the cup the Father has given him, which
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  is Old Testament language for the wrath of God.
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  Even pilots power was only what was given to him from above.
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  Jesus tells him that directly. You would have no authority over
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  me at all unless it had been given you from above.
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  His death was a plan to conquest, which is why he could
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  shout from the cross. It is finished.
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  And the way the prophecies are fulfilled down to the smallest
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  detail really underlines this point.
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  The detail is amazing. The soldiers gambling for his
• 18:20
  clothes fulfills Psalm 22. His thirst fulfills Psalm 69.
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  The fact that none of his bones were broken points back to the
• 18:28
  Passover lamb and Exodus even being pierced fulfilled
• 18:31
  Zechariah 12. All these little details show
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  that this wasn't chaos, it was God's precise plan being carried
• 18:37
  out at the exact right moment. So the only way is through this
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  crucified sovereign King, which means we now need to talk about
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  the agent who applies all this work, the Spirit.
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  Yes, the Holy Spirit is the one who distributes the life and
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  truth of Christ and we can look at his role in say 3 areas,
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  Truth, life and assurance. First, he's the Spirit of truth.
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  John the Baptist witness to Jesus, and then the Spirit
• 18:59
  descends on Jesus as a witness. Right then later, Jesus
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  introduces the Spirit as the Paraclete, the Advocate or
• 19:06
  Helper, and the Paraclete's main job is to testify to the truth
• 19:10
  about Jesus. But it's not just an internal
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  thing. He also convicts the world.
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  That's key. The Spirit will convict the
• 19:16
  world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement, and
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  Jesus defines what he means. The core sin is not believing in
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  him. The standard of righteousness is
• 19:25
  Jesus himself, now exalted at the Father's right hand.
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  And the judgement is that the ruler of this world, Satan, was
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  defeated at the cross. And what really stands out,
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  especially from this Reformed perspective, is how the spirits
• 19:37
  work is completely tied to Christ's work.
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  The Spirit doesn't have his own separate ministry.
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  He proceeds from the Father. He's sent by the Son and he only
• 19:46
  speaks what he hears from the Son.
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  His whole purpose is to bring glory to Jesus.
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  He's the one who takes what Christ has done and applies it
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  to us, always pointing back to the historical person and work
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  of the King. OK, second, the Spirit is the
• 19:58
  spirit of life. This new birth isn't something
• 20:01
  we can do for ourselves. It's a sovereign, miraculous
• 20:04
  work. Jesus tells Nicodemus.
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  You have to be born again, born from above, and you can't
• 20:09
  produce this yourself. The Spirit just does it.
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  He blows where he wishes. He grants this life because
• 20:14
  Jesus is the bread of life who secured it through his death.
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  And the water imagery throughout John really connects the spirit
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  to this life giving work. It does, yeah.
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  It echoes Old Testament promises like in Ezekiel 36, Jesus
• 20:28
  promises rivers of living water to anyone who is thirsty.
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  And John tells us he's talking about the Spirit.
• 20:34
  The Spirit is this internal spring that wells up to eternal
• 20:37
  life. And finally, the Spirit grants
• 20:40
  assurance. In Gospel, the promise that the
• 20:42
  Paraclete will be with the disciples forever hints at this
• 20:46
  secure, permanent life. But in First John, it's
• 20:49
  explicit. He wrote the letter so they
• 20:51
  would know they have eternal life.
• 20:52
  The Spirit This anointing is what confirms this truth to
• 20:56
  them. But how do you know that feeling
• 20:57
  of assurance is real and not just, you know, subjective
• 21:00
  wishful thinking? That's a great question, and
• 21:02
  John answers it. The Spirit's assurance is never
• 21:05
  separated from objective reality.
• 21:07
  The spear gives assurance to people who are keeping the
• 21:09
  commands, who are loving other believers, and who are
• 21:12
  confessing that Jesus is the Christ.
• 21:16
  If someone says I feel so assured but they're living in
• 21:19
  disobedience or hate, John would say they're feeling is a
• 21:22
  delusion. The Spirit works by pointing you
• 21:25
  back to the facts of Jesus work and the fruit of that work in
• 21:29
  your life. Which brings us to the necessary
• 21:31
  response to all of this believing and obeying the word
• 21:35
  for belief. Pistous shows up almost 100
• 21:37
  times in the Gospel. Yeah, John's whole point is to
• 21:40
  get people to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
• 21:43
  so they can have life. But he argues really strongly
• 21:46
  that this belief isn't just, you know, in a literal agreement.
• 21:49
  It's active, it's dynamic. So what does that active faith
• 21:52
  look like in John? Well, he describes it in a few
• 21:55
  ways. It's receiving Jesus, welcoming
• 21:57
  his testimony. It's also obeying and keeping
• 22:00
  his commands. For John, disobedience is
• 22:03
  basically the definition of unbelief.
• 22:05
  You can't say you believe in the King if you refuse to submit to
• 22:07
  him. And it also means abiding or
• 22:10
  following. Right disciples follow Jesus
• 22:13
  like she'd follow their shepherd.
• 22:14
  They have to abide or remain in Jesus and in his teaching.
• 22:18
  If you don't remain, you're cast aside.
• 22:21
  The true disciples life looks like righteousness and love and
• 22:24
  holding fast to the truth about Christ.
• 22:26
  John also uses these really rich physical metaphors for faith.
• 22:29
  He does. Faith is beholding the Son,
• 22:32
  really seeing him for who he is, especially as the crucified 1.
• 22:36
  And faith is eating and drinking Jesus's life.
• 22:39
  You're taking his saving work into yourself so that his life
• 22:42
  is in you. It all comes back to an act of
• 22:44
  trust in his bloody death. OK, this brings us to the last
• 22:47
  and maybe for a Reformed view, the most crucial theme, the
• 22:51
  divine gift of belief. Where does this faith come from
• 22:54
  in the first place? John is very clear that faith
• 22:56
  isn't something we produce on our own to earn salvation.
• 22:59
  It's a gift from God. He says believers are born of
• 23:02
  God, and in First John he often uses the perfect tense of that
• 23:06
  verb janosh and. The grammar there is really
• 23:09
  important for the order of salvation, isn't it?
• 23:11
  It's critical. The perfect tense indicates a
• 23:14
  past action with ongoing results.
• 23:16
  It means the new birth happened 1st and the believing and loving
• 23:20
  and obeying are the results of having been born of God, not the
• 23:23
  cause of it. Regeneration by the Spirit comes
• 23:26
  first, and that's what enables a person to then exercise faith.
• 23:29
  So this goes right to the heart of the doctrine of human
• 23:32
  inability. It does.
• 23:33
  Left to ourselves, we can't come to God.
• 23:35
  Jesus says that over and over. Only those the Father has given
• 23:39
  to the Son will come to him. The Father has to draw people.
• 23:42
  The desire to believe is itself a sovereign gift from God.
• 23:46
  And if God is the one who initiates faith, that's the real
• 23:49
  foundation for the believer security.
• 23:51
  Absolutely. The life he gives is
• 23:53
  irrevocable. Jesus says they will never
• 23:55
  perish, and no one can snatch them out of his hand or the
• 23:58
  Father's hand. Our security doesn't rest on the
• 24:00
  strength of our own faith, but on God's choice to give us that
• 24:03
  faith and His power to preserve us.
• 24:06
  Belief is the victory that overcomes the world.
• 24:08
  As the John says, even that victory is a response to the
• 24:11
  fact that God first loved us. That is an incredible overview
• 24:14
  of John's work. So to pull it all together, John
• 24:17
  gives us this incredibly high Christology.
• 24:20
  Jesus is the life, this eternal life we can have now.
• 24:23
  He's the truth, the fulfillment of the Old Testament, the I Am,
• 24:27
  and He's the Way, the crucified and glorified King, the
• 24:29
  sacrifice for our sins. And that whole structure is
• 24:31
  designed to lead to total assurance.
• 24:34
  You have the spirits witness, which is confirmed by your
• 24:36
  active faith. And it all rests on the bedrock
• 24:38
  that your faith itself is a sovereign, unshakable gift from
• 24:41
  God. The way the truth and the life
• 24:43
  all come together in the person of Jesus the King revealed for
• 24:46
  the salvation of his people. So for you the listener, here's
• 24:49
  something to think about. Consider the relationship
• 24:52
  between the spirits work inside you and the historical external
• 24:55
  facts of Jesus life. John goes out of his way to
• 24:58
  fight against any kind of purely mystical faith that's
• 25:01
  disconnected from history. He ties the Spirit's testimony
• 25:04
  directly to the water and the blood, Jesus's baptism and his
• 25:07
  crucifixion. So if the Spirit is always
• 25:09
  pointing you back to those specific historical events, to
• 25:12
  the facts, what does that tell you about the priority of
• 25:15
  studying the Scriptures is studying the Apostolic witness
• 25:17
  versus just seeking some kind of inner private revelation?
• 25:20
  It's a key question to hold on to as you think about the king.