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Yeshua is the Most Important Man Who Ever Lived. The Most Important Man brought the world the Most Important Message, a message that must be believed for human beings, who are alienated from God and headed to Hell, not Heaven, to death, not life, to be reconciled to their Creator and live forever.

Not only is Yeshua the Most Important Man, He is also the risen Messiah, who is alive now, and seated at the right hand of God the Father, where He rules as the Lord of Heaven and Earth. We want to be aware of Messiah, close to Him, connected to Him, learning from Him, directed by Him.

Everything Messiah did, everything He said, every interaction with others that has been recorded for us in the divinely inspired book of John, is extremely important. We want to understand as much as we possibly can about the Most Important Man and His Most Important Message. We want to line up our thoughts and our lives with the Most Important Man and His Most Important Message. We want to tell as many people as we can about this Most Important Man and His Most Important Message.

The book of John helps us do that. It’s one of the greatest books ever written. It’s divinely inspired; accurate; true, reliable; trustworthy.

It is one of the most widely read books ever written. It is one of the most loved books ever written.

It was written by John, a man of the Chosen People, and one of Yeshua’s closest disciples. John was one of Messiah’s inner circle. It was written by someone who was very close to Yeshua, and an eyewitness to these amazing events.

It was written in the first century, probably between 45 and 90 AD.

It was written to help us believe that Yeshua is the Messiah and the Son of God; and by knowing that Yeshua is the Messiah and becoming loyal to Him, we gain eternal life.

To help us believe, John records a number of “signs” – miracles that point to Yeshua and tell us something about who He is.

To help us believe, John includes some “I Am” statements: I am the Bread of Life. I am the Light of the World. I am the Door. I am the Good Shepherd. I am the Resurrection and the Life. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. I am the Vine. Before Abraham was, I Am.

To help us believe, John gives us titles for Yeshua which enable us to better understand who He is. He is the Word; God; the Light; Rabbi; Messiah; King of Israel; Lamb of God; Savior of the world; Son of Man; Son of God; Lord.

The book of John was written chronologically, using the holidays of Passover, Sukkot and Chanukkah.

It was written using simple, yet profound words.

It was written using contrasts – between God and Satan, good and evil, light and darkness, love and hate, life and death, flesh and spirit, slavery and freedom, truth and lie.

It was written quoting Yeshua’s use of everyday physical things that were easy for people to understand – like wind, bread, leaven, salt, food, water, birth, seeds and sowing and reaping, darkness and light – to help people understand spiritual realities, which very often they didn’t initially understand.

It was written with an emphasis on Yeshua’s deity and His humanity, showing that He is fully God and fully man and therefore uniquely able to save fallen, dying humanity.

The arrival of the Son of God to this world is a new beginning for fallen humanity. John starts his book using language similar to the book of beginnings – Genesis.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Yeshua is the Word. He is the personification of everything God the Father wants to say to mankind. He is the way that the invisible God is best able to communicate to us. Yeshua is the Greatest Revealer of God. He is the ultimate revelation of God.

Yeshua was with God in the beginning. Like God the Father, Yeshua was in the beginning and before the beginning. Who is Yeshua? Someone who is eternal and uncreated.

Yeshua was with God. He was always with God. There was never a time when Yeshua was not with God. Yeshua always shared the relationship of eternal divine Son to eternal divine Father.

Yeshua was with God, and He also was God – deity, divine, divinity, fully God, possessing all the attributes of God.

The Word was with God, and the Word was God. John is telling us that Yeshua is distinct from God the Father as a Person (with God) yet equal to God the Father in divine nature (was God). Within the nature of God, there is a distinction of divine Persons and a oneness of divine nature.

Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. Yeshua is the One who did the actual work of creation. The Father spoke the word to create (let there be light; let the waters be separated; let the Earth, sun, moon and stars appear; let the plants and animals come into being; let Us make man in Our image), and the Son carried out the word of His Father, and created the universe and everything in it. Space. Time. Matter. Energy. Math. The laws of physics. The laws of chemistry. Billions of galaxies. Millions of complex life forms – Yeshua made them all.

In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Life and light are related. Yeshua is the source of life and He is the light of all mankind.

Like God the Father, the Son has life within Himself. His life is not derive from any external source. He always had life in Him. Because of that eternal life that is in Him, Yeshua is able to restore life to those who forfeited their life by joining the rebellion of the fallen angels – us.

Yeshua is the light of all mankind. Whatever light a human being has, comes to him from Yeshua.

John gives us a contrast between light and darkness. As a result of that rebellion, humanity is full of darkness – confusion, chaos, unhappiness, defeat, death. We need light – truth, knowledge, wisdom, revelation, victory, salvation, happiness and life. To leave the darkness and experience the light, we must come to the source of light of all mankind – Yeshua.

Along with the arrival of the great light, was the arrival of a smaller light – John the Baptist. John, our author, wants us to know that John the Baptist, who made a tremendous impact on the Jewish people, was not the great light. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.

John the Baptist was one of the very greatest human beings who ever lived. He was filled by the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb. He was a very holy man. And he was a priest. And he was related to Messiah. And he was a prophet. And he was the first prophet sent by God to Israel in 400 years.

And he was the very special forerunner of the first coming of the Messiah, sent by God to prepare the Chosen People for the arrival of the Messiah and to identify the Messiah when He arrived. This very special man made a tremendous impact on the Jewish people of his day. But our divinely inspired author, John, wants us to know that John the Baptist was not the Messiah.

I love this next part. I enjoy irony, and in my opinion, this is the greatest of ironies. It is the opposite of what most people would expect. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. The Creator visited His creation and was unrecognized and rejected by the world of human beings He made. That tells us a lot about human beings and human nature. Human beings are so far from God that when our Maker came to this world, we were unable to recognize the One through whom the world was made. How ironic – and how tragic!

But not everyone rejected Him. There was a remnant who were given the grace to recognize Him and receive Him. Great things happened to them, and those same great things will happen to anyone who receives Yeshua. Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. Fallen human beings, who are far from God, but who receive Yeshua – and we receive Yeshua by knowing who He is and becoming loyal to Him – become the glorious, honorable, eternal sons and daughters of God.

And John makes it clear that the opposite is true: human beings who have not received Yeshua are not the children of God. No one becomes a child of God merely by being born. No one becomes a child of God by doing anything a human being can do.

This is one of the most important statements in the Word of God about the nature of salvation. It teaches us that salvation is of God, not man. Salvation is something only God can do. It is not something man can do. The only way to become a child of the eternal God is by being born of God. And the only way to be born of God is by receiving Yeshua. And the only way to receive Yeshua is by believing He is the Messiah and the Son of God and transferring your loyalty to Him.

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. The Word, who is fully divine, and who is most clearly able to reveal who God is and what God wants from us, became a human being. Amazing. Fantastic! John and his friends were privileged to meet this glorious Word made flesh, and understand that He is the one and only Son.

God has many sons. Angels and men are called sons of God, but angels and men do not share all of God’s nature. But, there is one special Son who does share God’s nature. This one and only Son shares the Father’s name and nature. He is very God of very God.

Being the one and only Son does not mean that God created the Son, or gave birth to the Son, or that the Son is younger than God. It means exactly the opposite! It means that Yeshua shares the same nature as God the Father, just as a human son shares the human nature of his human father.

John and his friends were privileged to meet this glorious Word made flesh, and understand that He is full of grace and truth.

Grace is unmerited favor. It is kindness shown to one who undeserving. Truth is what’s real; truth is the way things really are. Yeshua is full of grace. He is constantly gracious toward others, even when they don’t deserve it. He is never ungracious. He is full of grace, so full, that there is a continual supply of grace flowing from Him.

And He is full of truth. He always spoke the truth. He only spoke the truth. He never lied. He was never was wrong about anything. He was never mistaken. He knew more about God and spiritual reality and the way to be reconciled to God than anyone else, and He told us what He knew. That makes Yeshua unique. Every other human being has lied or been mistaken or said something in error. Not Yeshua. That means that we can trust everything He said. And we need to trust everything He said.

John testified concerning Him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.’” John, the greatest of the prophets, understood that Yeshua was before him. Even though John was older than Yeshua and came before Yeshua, John understood that, in some mysterious way, Yeshua existed before him and was greater than him.

Out of His fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. Yeshua is so full of grace that when one grace runs out, another grace is there to take its place. The grace in place of grace that is flowing from Yeshua reminds me of the story of Elisha and the poor widow who was so in debt that her two children were about to be taken from her and sold as slaves to pay off her debt. Her only possession was a jar of oil. Elisha told her and her children to gather a lot of empty containers. They did, and from the one jar of oil, oil flowed and flowed and flowed until all the empty containers were filled with oil. The oil was sold and her debts were able to be paid.

Yeshua is like that jar of oil. There is a continual supply of grace flowing from Him that can fill every available vessel. When one unmerited favor is finished, there is another undeserved good thing that can come from Yeshua to take its place. Get close to Him and you will receive that unending supply of grace.

John wants us to know that John the Baptist was great, but Yeshua is much greater than John. And Moses was great, but Yeshua is much greater than Moses. For the Torah was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Messiah Yeshua.

John, who is the Lord’s Representative and divinely-inspired, affirms that the Torah was given through Moses – not through other men centuries later like the higher critical heretics claim.

The Torah was given through Moses – and that’s a very good thing. The Torah is wonderful. It’s fantastic. It has many things to teach us. It has a very important place in the life of Israel and Messiah’s Community. Thank God for Moses and the Torah!

John is not telling us to disrespect Moses or the Torah. John is telling us that Yeshua is greater than Moses, and Messiah’s New Covenant is greater than the covenants found in the Torah.

John is telling us that there is grace and truth in Moses and the Torah, but that grace and truth are incomplete. Yeshua is the completion of the grace and truth found there, the perfection of the grace and truth found there, the fulness of the grace and truth found in Moses and the Torah.

The Torah is good and teaches us about grace and truth, and about God, but its revelation of God incomplete. Even Moses, the author of the Torah was never able to fully see God.

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made Him known. At times, Moses saw manifestations of God and glimpses. While hidden in a rock, Moses caught a partial glimpse of a partial revelation of the back of God the Father, but Moses never fully saw God the Father. How could he, since God the Father is infinitely holy and greater than the entire universe?

But Yeshua is the unique Son of God, who is Himself God and who is in closest relationship with God the Father, and therefor uniquely able to see God the Father and reveal God to us – far better than Moses and the Torah ever did. Because of who He is and the relationship He has to the Father, Yeshua is able to reveal God to us and show us what God is like and tell us God wants from us and how we can be reconciled to God and live forever.

So, who is Yeshua according to this first part of the first chapter of the divinely inspired book of John?

Yeshua is the Word made flesh. He is able to reveal God to us. Do you want to know God and what God is saying and what God wants? You need Yeshua.

Yeshua is God – eternal, uncreated, sharing all the attributes of God. Do you want God? You need Yeshua.

Yeshua is the unique Son of God. Do you want to become one of the glorious, honorable and eternal sons and daughters of God? You need to receive Yeshua – and we receive Yeshua by knowing who He is and becoming loyal to Him.

Because of the eternal life that is in Him, Yeshua is able to restore life that was forfeited by those who joined the rebellion of the fallen angels. Do you want life? Unending life? Eternal life? Joyous life? You need Yeshua.

Yeshua did the actual work of creation, making the universe and everything in it. Do you want to be part of a new and perfect universe that Yeshua will make? You need Yeshua.

Yeshua is the light of endarkened mankind. Do you want wisdom, truth, understanding, happiness, victory, life? You need Yeshua.

Yeshua is full of grace and truth. Do you want to know the truth, which can set you free, and save you? You need Yeshua?

Do you want a continual, unending supply of grace, so that when one unearned blessing runs out, another is there to take its place? You need Yeshua.

Yeshua is so much! He is so unique, so special, so amazing in so many ways! May God enable Yeshua to be all these things to us and may we respond faithfully to all He is and become all that we should be! Amen?

And, let’s be His ambassadors and tell as many others as we possibly can about Him, so they can receive Yeshua too, and join us living forever with the Three-In-One God. Amen?