Seen any Messiah’s lately?

Messiah’s come in lots of forms. Apparently Mal Meninga was a messiah for the Queensland State of Origin team, leading them to countless victories. Jamie Oliver was a Messiah to the tiring TV chef world. NBN was supposed to be the Messiah to slow internet…

So, get ready for the first half of John’s gospel: An account of God’s messiah introduced and confirmed.

The When What and Why

John was written by the Apostle John in his later years between 85-90AD. Like many other New Testament writings it seems that this one was put together to pass on the truth of the gospel before the first eyewitnesses died.

John’s reason for writing is spelled out to us more clearly that in many other Bible books:

‘that you might believe Jesus is the Christ, the son of God.’ John 20:31.

John wants people to believe that Jesus is the Christ. Or, another word for that is Messiah.

From the opening chapter John declares that the Christ will be made known (1:17- 18), and very early the first disciples claim they have identified this Christ (1:41). The “Jews” pick up the cause in 10:24 asking directly if the Christ is Jesus. Jesus himself declares the Christ will be known after he is lifted up (12:34). After Jesus is lifted up at crucifixion (and resurrection), John explains that this happened ‘that you might believe Jesus is the Christ the son of God.

This makes it tricky for us. Jewish people knew what a Messiah was. Most people today don’t really.

But thankfully John shows us time and time again what it means to have the Messiah of God come to earth and it’s summed up beautifully in the world famous verse

John 3:16-17:

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

The Messiah has come to give life to the world by conquering sin and death on their behalf. Life free from the devil (John 9), life free from the penalty of sin (John 3:36), life free from sickness (John 4:51-52), life by the Spirit (John 7:37), life in the love of the Father (John 17:20-21), and life that never ends (John 8:51). This is kingdom life, and Jesus is the king of this kingdom. The Messiah.

Rising Clash

The first half of John is what we’ll cover in this series. The first 12 chapters introduce to us who Jesus is and the failure of the authorities to recognize him.

By the end of this section we see Jesus’ amazing miracle with Lazarus, confirming that with Jesus life is here.

[Acknowledgement: This study guide is based on a series preached at Dalby in 2018 – used with permission and thanks]

The oldest New Testament Fragment – Rylands Papyrus P52

In 1920 Someone brought a collection of ancient bits of scroll at a market in Egypt. It wasn’t until 1934 in a back room at Oxford university that someone discovered just

how big that trip to the markets was. Among the bits of scroll was one fragment that looked like this:

Convincing huh?

The verse on the scroll is John 18:31-33. It was found on a region on the banks of the Nile, some 1000kms from where John’s gospel was written, and it dates to around 125AD.

You know what that means?

Think about what it takes to get one bit of scroll from almost two thousand years ago to survive...it means that by 125 AD there had to be enough copies of John for it to spread across that region of the Mediterranean and for at least one of them to survive.

This was the discovery that put an end to the idea that the Bible was written hundreds of years after Jesus. Even non-Christian scholars admitted that for this thing to pop up where it did the original must’ve been written some 30-50 years before.

And that puts the original squarely in the lifetime of John.

It used to be regarded as the oldest surviving bit of New Testament, but at the moment there’s another bit from 40 years earlier being investigated (see https://www.challies.com/ articles/the-history-of-christianity-in-25-objects-rylands- library-papyrus-p52/).