The Gospel of John Made Easy
Chapter 1
Verses 29 – 51
verse 29 – 34
The next day after these leaders were talking to John, Jesus came to the river where John was. John saw him coming. John said to the people—–“Look ! Here is the Lamb of God. He will take away the sin of the world.”
“This is the one I said would come after me, yet he is chosen before me and he is better and greater than me.”
John said, “I did not know who he was.” John was preaching that someone would come soon. This someone was from God. This someone was the one God chose to come to earth. It was the same one who the prophets had talked about in the Old Testament. John did not know it was going to be Jesus.
John said, “But I knew he would be shown to Israel. That is the reason I came to baptize in water.”
John said, “I saw the Spirit of God come down from heaven like a dove. It came down upon him and stayed on him.”
John said, “I did not know it would be him. I only know that God told me to go baptize people with water. And that when I saw the Spirit coming down and staying on this person, he will be the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.”
John, who had the Holy Spirit in him, felt in his spirit that he was to go to the Jordan river and baptize people in water. He was to preach to them about turning away from their sins, and be baptized.
While he was baptizing people, some day, some time, God would send a special man to him. When this man was baptized, the Holy Spirit would come down upon him.
John said, “I saw this happen. I saw this was the Son of God.”
Luke tells what happened. Luke 3: 21 – 22 “…the heavens opened, and the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the shape of a dove. A voice from heaven said, You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
We see the Trinity in action here. We see 3 different “persons” of God. Jesus is in a human body in the river. The Holy Spirit comes down in the shape of a dove. God the Father talks from heaven and speaks to Jesus.
God the Father calls Jesus his son. Other people were being baptized when this happened. The Bible does not say if they could see this dove, or if they heard this voice. John saw and heard it, because he said in vs. 14,
” I saw, and I can testify to it.”
God told John that when he saw the Spirit come down on this person, he would be the one God had chosen.
verses 35 – 51
The next day John and two of the disciples were talking together.
John saw Jesus and John said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples went to Jesus and followed him.
Jesus saw them following him. He asked them, “What are you looking for?” They asked him, “Rabbi, (This is a Jewish word for Master or Teacher) Where do you live?” Jesus said, “Come and see.” So they went with him to see where he was staying. It was about the “tenth” hour. In Jewish time that would be from 3 to 4 in the afternoon. In Roman time it would be about 5 to 6 pm.
One of these men who followed Jesus was Andrew. He went to find his brother, Simon Peter. He told Peter that he had found Messiah, the Christ. He brought Peter to Jesus.
When Jesus saw Peter he said your name is Simon Peter, but I will call you Cephas, which means “a stone”.
The next day Jesus went into Galilee. He saw a man named Philip. He said to Philip, “Follow me.” Philip lived in the same town as Andrew and Simon Peter—the town of Bethsaida. Philip went to get Nathanael.
Philip told Nathanael, “We have found the person Moses and the prophets told about Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
Philip said, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip said, “Come and see.” It seems that Nazareth was a small town of no importance. To think that someone as important as the Messiah to come from such a town was hard to believe. If the Messiah had come from Jerusalem, maybe one could believe that.
When Jesus saw Nathanael, he said, “He is a true man of Israel. There is nothing dishonest in him.”
Nathanael said to Jesus, “How do you know me?” Jesus said, “Before Andrew called you, I saw you sitting under a fig tree.”
Nathanael thought about how this man could see him in another town sitting under a tree. He said to Jesus, “You must be the Son of God, a King of Israel.”
Jesus said, “You believe I am the Son of God because I told you I saw you under the tree?” “You will see bigger things than that.” “You will see the kingdom of heaven open, and the angels of God coming down and going up upon the Son of Man (Jesus).”