Automatic Transcript Generated
Speaker 1
So Sonya is asking what does John 3:22-36 mean? All right, my friend Sonya, I love that name, by the way. Very cool. This is a really interesting passage that you bring up in John 3:22-36. And it’s kind of a long passage, so we don’t have to read the whole thing.
Speaker 1
But I’ll basically summarize what’s going on here. This passage is John the Baptist speaking to his disciples. And so basically what happened was before Jesus began his earthly ministry, before he was baptized by John the Baptist, john the Baptist had disciples as well. There were lots of people that were following John because John was preaching that, hey, get ready for the coming Messiah. So basically in the Old Testament, it talks about as one crying in the wilderness saying get ready for the day of the Lord because Jesus the Messiah was coming to the earth for the first time.
Speaker 1
And just like Jesus says he’ll have the spirit of Elijah. And so this was John the Baptist. What happened was when John the Baptist had been going through his ministry for a while, he had a lot of followers or disciples and they were doing things that John was telling them to do. But then all of a sudden Jesus came into the picture and Jesus started getting followers and disciples. And so John’s disciples were like, hey, these disciples of Jesus are doing stuff and that’s kind of taken away from your ministry.
Speaker 1
Should we be opposed to this? So they were concerned about the ministry of Jesus. They didn’t understand it yet. And so basically they were talking about I think the big issue was like you read in verse 25 that John’s disciples were arguing about the purification. So like the Jews had a ritual of purification like washing your hands.
Speaker 1
And if you remember, Jesus had kind of an altercation or a conversation with the Jews about it doesn’t matter, this ritual of washing your hands, that’s not what makes you pure and clean. It’s about spiritually speaking. It’s not what goes in your mouth, it’s what comes out of your mouth. And so John’s disciples were worried about what was going on with Jesus. And John says, you know, to them, you know, first of all, he explains in verse 28 that you yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ, but I am sent before him.
Speaker 1
And in verse 30 he says a very profound verse which says he must increase, but I must decrease. So basically John is saying, look, Jesus is going to get more popular than me. Jesus is going to do these things, he’s going to have more following and have more authority than me because he’s from heaven, I’m from earth. And so basically John is just pointing to Jesus as the Messiah. And if you go down to the last verse in verse 36, he says he that believes on the son Jesus has everlasting life.
Speaker 1
And he that believes not on the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. So basically, again, John is just pointing to Jesus because that was the purpose of John’s ministry, was not to be a leader in any way. His job was just to point to Jesus. So that’s really what these verses are talking about. Again, it’s just a conversation John is having with his disciples where he is pointing his disciples in essence to Jesus Christ because that was his role in his ministry.
Speaker 1
Do or Wendy? Do you guys have any other thoughts on that? No. Totally agree.
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In His Service
BibleAsk Team
