Faithful on Fridays Blog

The gospel of John is unique, his writings about the life of Christ are more mystical, but still reflect Jesus’ destiny of bringing the light of God into our lives.

The Word gave life to everything that was created, and His life brought light to everyone. The One who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. John 1:4, 9 

This word ‘everyone’ in Greek means all, the whole thing, gathering the whole kit and caboodle. Jesus loved uniting people, making the total picture of salvation available to the Jew, but also to the Gentile (all nations), one piece at a time. God is all about amalgamation: mixing and merging everyone together for the whole picture to finally emerge.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! John 1:29 

The whole world; for all time?

For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him. John 3:16-17 

To the Samaritan woman’s expression of faith the people declared,

 “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard Him ourselves. Now we know that He is indeed the Savior of the world. John 4:42 

It seems to me that John’s ear was tuned in to Jesus’ words regarding the nations of the world; these recorded words are only found in his gospel. That insight into the nations we’ll see later in the Book of Revelation by John, but for now, Jesus proclaimed,

For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh. John 6:33, 51 

Let’s think back … God wanted the world, the cosmos, filled with His glory as mankind enjoyed His presence throughout eternity. The garden in the ‘east’, Eden, a place of delight or paradise, was a picture of where everyone enjoyed relationship with their Maker and that completed the enigma or mystery of eternal life. We won’t be eternally floating around in heaven, but will be inhabiting a complete world, paradise, where everyone has access again to the Tree of Life,

He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:22

God scattered mankind from paradise one time, but will gather us back in again at just the right time for all eternity.