Do We Really Have to Know Jesus?

Tom: In this segment, we’re gleaning from the Gospel of John the verses which specifically relate to the gospel of salvation. And as we’ve been saying, knowing who Jesus is is critical to receiving the salvation which only comes through Him. Dave, we sort of rushed through…

Dave: Now, Tom, let me just go back a second here. I have the right to interrupt, I guess, now and then. You said…

Tom: It’s in your contract.

Dave: You’ve made a statement: “knowing who Jesus is.” What do you mean? Can’t you just believe in some name, there was some person Jesus…

Tom: Well, that’s how we could all get along, if we just didn’t worry about doctrine. We could just love Jesus.

Dave: But Jesus, in John 17, remember, He said, “This is life eternal—that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” So, we have to know Him, and we have to know who He is to know Him. We have to know the true God, not just some name, you know—some person named Jesus back there. It doesn’t really matter who He was or whether He was divine or not,” and so forth. “But it moves me emotionally. I can really get goosebumpy about this thought about Jesus, you know. It was so wonderful. He was such an inspiring character.” That won’t work! Sorry, Tom, I interrupted you, but carry on!

Tom:  Well, okay. That’s what we were talking about last week, going over some of these verses. We want to know Him. We mentioned before that looking at the Gospel of John—probably there’s a book in the Bible that, made into booklets, given out, people are saved because they’re getting to know who Jesus is, for salvation, which is absolutely critical.

But verse three—this is the Book of John, chapter 1, verse 3: “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.”

Here we have the Creator of the universe. We’re looking at verses that underscore the deity of Christ. He is not a created one, as some would say, but He is the Creator of everything!

Dave: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Tom: …that was created. “In Him was life…” We can stop there. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me.”

Dave: And, Tom, it goes beyond our comprehension. It’s talking about more than life, because it says, “The life was the light of men.” So, it’s not talking about physical life. “God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul”—this is what it says of Adam. And souls, as far as we can understand from the Bible, they don’t ever cease to exist. That’s why we are eternal beings, and that’s why it’s important to know where the soul and spirit will spend eternity after the body is laid into the grave. We don’t even understand what that means. They’re trying to create life in a laboratory. It’s not just a composite of carbon and oxygen and hydrogen and the various atoms. But there’s something…

Tom: Those are all dead, by the way.

Dave: Right. Dead things can’t spring into life. We did away with spontaneous generation back there in the days of Pasteur, I think. We don’t even understand what physical life is. We sure don’t know what the life is that God gave man and he became a living soul—a thinking individual, with a sense of his own personal identity,  able to comprehend the existence of God; able to reason about the universe, to have a sense of morals and ethics. Wow! Where does that come from? It comes from God, because man was made in the image of God.

Tom:  And, Dave, finishing with verse 4: “…and the life was the light of men. Verse 5: and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.” Now, what does that mean?

Dave: Well, if you grew up in total darkness in a cave somewhere, a mile under the earth, you’ve never seen light, and suddenly it comes. You wouldn’t know what it was. It would expose things in the cave around you that you had only felt, you had never seen. And God, in His purity, His holiness, His wisdom, His power, is so far beyond man. He says, “As the heavens are high above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts, my ways above your ways.” So here comes…we talked a little bit about it last time in relation to suffering—here comes light in a dark world! A world where “men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil,” John tells us in chapter 3.

Well, the darkness doesn’t understand, doesn’t comprehend, does not understand this One—who He is. He says things that they don’t know what they mean. They can’t somehow quite grasp the truth that He’s bringing to them. That’s what I understand.

Tom:  It was an offense to them as well.

Dave: Yes.

Tom: They reject and react sometimes with great hostility to it.

Dave: Well, if you’re a creature of the dark and suddenly a light is shined on you, you do cringe. You do feel that you’ve been invaded and you’re not happy about it. So, definitely that was what happened. That’s why Jesus was rejected.

Tom: Dave, I’m going to read verse 6, but I want to jump ahead to verse 8 with regard to what we were just talking about: “That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” The reason I jumped ahead to that is that this is for everybody. This light shines upon everybody, doesn’t it?

Dave: In our conscience, we know…well, Romans 2 says that “the Gentiles, which have not the law [that is, they didn’t receive it at Mount Sinai], yet they do by nature the things that are written in the Law,” they bear witness that their conscience has the Law written in it because they accuse or excuse one another, according to the very laws that God has given man.

We’ve probably mentioned it before, but that’s one of the arguments against keeping the Sabbath, because nobody has written in their conscience, “Keep the Sabbath.” But they have written in their conscience the moral laws. Everybody has this, but nobody has keeping the Sabbath…

Tom: ...Right, which was for Israel…

Dave: That was for Israel…

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: That was a specific command that God gave for Israel. So, they all…this light lightens every man in his conscience, the understanding that we gain from the universe around us—we know of God’s eternal power and Godhead, Romans 1 says. So, the Bible says, “They are all without excuse.” So there’s no one. Psalm 19: “There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.” That is, the voice of creation shouting “Creator! Creator! a purpose for life, a cause. You were brought into existence by God. And you owe an obligation to Him to live up to what He intended you to be.”

So, “there is no speech nor language where that voice is not heard. This is the light that lightens every man that comes into the world.”

Tom: Verse 6: “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.” (Of course, this is John the Baptist.)

Dave: Be sure you’re sent from God! (chuckles) Don’t claim it if it isn’t true.

Tom: Right. Verse 7: “The same came for a witness to bear witness to the light that all men through Him might believe. (V. 8) He was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light, and that was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

Now, Dave, it keeps using “world” over and over again. As a matter of fact, verse 10: “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.”

So, it seems really clear, just from these verses, that salvation is for everyone.

Dave:  I would think so! And John, of course, does not claim to be the light. He doesn’t claim to have any power in himself. He’s bearing witness: “Behold the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world.” Again, we have “world.” I guess you’re leading in the direction of comment upon Calvinism, which claims that there…

Tom: Well, but even if we don’t mention it, the point is that God’s salvation is for everyone, and the Bible says that…

Dave: That’s what it says.

Tom: Right. So, you know, we don’t even have to get into that particular aspect of what somebody believes. It’s “What does God’s Word say?” I’d almost rather not, because let’s just go with what God’s Word says.

Dave: But, Tom, there are those who say that “all” doesn’t mean “all”; “world” doesn’t mean “world.” “It has another meaning for it. So, what you’re saying is if we’re ordinary people, we read God’s Word, it sounds like “all” means “all.” It sounds like “world” means “world,” and this is what it says: “that all men through Him might believe.”

Tom: Verse 11: “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.” Now, this would be Jesus, the Messiah, coming to Israel, and they received Him not. It’s very simple, very clear.

Dave: The promise was to Israel the Messiah would come. “And they received Him not.” I mean, it’s so staggering, Tom, that the God who created the universe, who created them, He comes to His own people, the Jews, who have the prophets, they have the Law, they have the promises of the Messiah—and they don’t recognize Him. In fact, they cry, “Away with Him!” But that’s an example of all of us, because the whole world rejected Him and rejects Him to this day.

Tom: Well, the good news is, next verse: “But as many as received him…” We’re not saying that they all rejected Him. The scripture’s not saying that.  But all have the opportunity to have salvation that comes only through Him, Christ our Messiah, our Savior.

Dave: It couldn’t come through anyone else, or in any other way. That’s clear.