Two different men named John give us their testimonies of Jesus of Nazareth. How can we resist studying these eyewitness accounts from men called the Baptist and the Beloved? We’ll see one of the best missionary tools in history, an approach that can’t help but bring curiosity to the seeker of truth. Let’s study John, Chapter 1 together.
Scot
Welcome again to Meridian Magazine’s podcast on the Come, Follow Me curriculum. We’re so excited to be with you. We’re Scot and Maurine Proctor, and it’s just fun to be here as husband and wife talking about these wonderful things. And we hope that it’s a blessing and helping your families and helping you as you try to study these materials and come to know the Savior more than you have before.
Maurine
We’re just sitting here in our study surrounded by books, which we love. And we’re especially grateful for Paul Cardall for supplying the music for the intro to this podcast. Today’s study is John 1.
Scot
You know, Joseph Smith calls this book The Testimony of John. So, think of this as his testimony to us as an eyewitness of the life of the Savior. When you really think about that, that gets you really excited that we’re with someone who was with Him, and he gives us His words so beautifully. So aren’t we blessed to have this first person account, this witness and testimony of John, who was called John the Beloved or John the Revelator?
Maurine
Now, the proposed dates for the writing of the Gospel of John is sometime between AD 60 and AD 100. And it’s most likely that he wrote his Gospel after he wrote the Book of Revelation. This was a tumultuous time and a time of apostasy. And so John is addressing some of those issues that people who would be true to the Lord need to know. And, of course, he’s addressing church members. This is written after the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are sometimes called the Synoptic Gospels, because they give a synopsis of the life of Christ. And instead, John is crafting a very, very special kind of message. John knew that if all the sayings and doings of Jesus were recorded, quote, “…even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 21:25), end quote. And that’s from John 21:25. Therefore, he carefully selected the material for his record.
Scot
Obviously, John was carefully putting his own testimony together with a determination to bring us to this Jesus whom he had come to know personally. And he’s going to do so by selecting very specific events, miracles, and witnesses to affirm that this, indeed, is the very Messiah that they had been waiting for in their day. About 92% of John’s testimony is not found in the other Gospel accounts. This is probably because John’s intended audience were church members who already had a basic understanding of His life.
Maurine
So it’s a different audience than Matthew, Mark, and Luke have. And so, interestingly enough, we see seven miracles that John talks about in his Gospel, and five are not recorded in any other Gospel. Also, it’s fascinating that he has more references to the Father than any other Gospel record. John recorded over 100 instances of Jesus’ referring to His Father, with over 20 references in John 14 alone. It’s clear that he wants to make it known that this is the Son, the Only Begotten Son of the Eternal Father.
Scot
I love how early in his book, or in his testimony, right there in Chapter 1, John uses not only his own witness of who Jesus is, but he draws upon the witnesses of John the Baptist, Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathaniel, and, of course, the Savior witnessed of Himself to them. And so we’ll talk about that later in the podcast. So he draws upon all these witnesses early on to tell us that Jesus is the Christ.
Maurine
So, who was John? Well, he refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved. Isn’t that tender?
Scot
Well, he was a fisherman who worked on the Sea of Galilee with their father, Zebedee, and with Peter and Andrew. They were partners in this fishing business.
Maurine
He was a follower of John the Baptist. So we have this wonderful account of John the Baptist, partly because John was there as a witness so often.
Scot
Well, and John served with Peter and James in what we might call the First Presidency in the dispensation of the meridian of time.
Maurine
Tradition indicates that John actually may have been Jesus’ first cousin. And this tradition also indicates that Salome, who is mentioned in Mark 16:1 was the sister of Jesus’ mother Mary, and the mother of James and John. So this may be a family relationship.
Scot
Well, we also learned from Matthew 4:22 that when John was called by Jesus to follow Him, he immediately left his ship and his nets and followed Him. What an example for us. He straightway left his nets. Immediately he left them to follow Jesus.
Maurine
It’s interesting that the Joseph Smith Translation gives us 34 verses from John 1. So 1 through 34 is also in the JST with significant changes.
Now, we have this interesting verse that begins John 1.
“In the beginning was the Word…”— a capitalized Word— “…and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1).
Now, what does this Word mean?
Scot
President Russell M. Nelson explained the meaning of the Savior’s title “The Word.” He said, quote,
“In the Greek language of the New Testament, that Word was Logos, or ‘expression.’ It was another name for the Master. That terminology may seem strange, but it is appropriate. We use words to convey our expression to others. So Jesus was the Word, or expression, of His Father to the world” (President Russell M. Nelson, “Jesus the Christ: Our Master and More”, Ensign, Apr. 2000.).
I love that.
Maurine
This gives new meaning for me to those words in Alma 32 where we are told to compare the word unto a seed.
“Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.” (Alma 32:28)
It’s so interesting that it’s the word that we are to plant in our souls. It is Jesus Christ Himself as we study the scriptures and the word of the gospel. But how fascinating it is that it’s the Lord Himself that we’re planting in us as we study.
Scot
I do love that so much.
Back to verse one in John. In the Joseph Smith Translation it says,
“In the beginning was the gospel preached through the Son. And the gospel was the word, and the word was with the Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was of God.
“The same was in the beginning with God” (JST John 1:1-2).
So we have here this glorious doctrine of premortality. This verse points us to that intimate relationship from the beginning between the Father and the Son. And it sets the stage for what John’s theme of the Father and the Son being one is throughout his testimony.
“…I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn[.]” (D&C 93:21)
That’s from Doctrine and Covenants, Section 93:21.
Maurine
That is so moving to me to think that Christ was there in the beginning with the Father. And it also gives new meaning for me with how powerful it was when the Father presented His plan about how He would help all of His children progress to be like Him. And it was Jesus who stepped forward and said, “Here am I, send me” (Moses 4:1). This was somebody we already, all of us, had complete confidence in. In fact, Neal Maxwell said:
“In intelligence and performance [Jesus Christ] far surpasses the individual and the composite capacities and achievements of all who have lived, live now, and will yet live” (Neal Maxwell, “O, Divine Redeemer”, Ensign, Nov. 1981,8.).
Every verse in John chapter one is packed, and I love the confidence that all of us felt from the beginning in Jesus Christ because He was from the beginning with His Father.
Scot
Well, in verse three it says,
“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3).
He had created worlds without number, we learn from Moses 1:33—millions of earths like this and all things from the beginning.
Let’s talk about God the Father for a moment. Bruce R. McConkie said,
“First, he [God the Father] is the Father of all spirits, Christ’s included […]. Second, he is the Creator of the physical body of man.” (Bruce R. McConkie, from A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985, pp.58-65)
Doesn’t it make you just so happy to think about Jesus now as the creator of worlds without number? As Paul said in Hebrews 1:2,
“Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:2).
Maurine
No wonder we had so much joy in the premortal realms as we saw the Savior create these worlds—Jehovah—and create this world that we would be on. No wonder its nature and its beauty speaks so deeply to us. We’re going to play one verse of a GENTRI song that we think you’ll like that reminds us of this.
Oh Lord, my God
When I, in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy power throughout the universe displayed
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art
(How Great Thou Art, performed by GENTRI)
Scot
Doesn’t that just make you so happy?
Maurine
It makes me happy. Versus four and five are also just wonderful.
“In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:4-5)
So we’re getting so much information about Christ in very few verses here. So Christ was the word. He was life. We have no life unless He gives it to us. He was light. What does that mean that the darkness comprehended it not? Comprehendeth is an interesting word because it means that the darkness cannot extinguish the light. The darkness cannot triumph over the light. The darkness cannot overcome the light. It’s amazing that if you even strike a match in a dark room, the darkness has to flee. It’s also so surprising and interesting that it is this light that comes from the bosom of God, we learn in Doctrine and Covenants 88. It is this light that goes in and through all things. So it is light that is real. Darkness is the sham and darkness has no chance against the light. Sometimes in our lives it may look to us like darkness is winning. We feel heavy, our problems seem intense, we wonder as we look around the world if Satan is winning, if the adversary in his darkness is carrying the day. It’s so good to be reminded that the darkness comprehended it not. In other words, the darkness can never, never extinguish the light and the light will triumph in the end.
Scot
In verse ten it says:
“[Jesus] He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
“He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name[.]” (John 1:10-12)
So some are a little bit confused by this. We learn that because all men and women are spirit sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents, some people may wonder why we need power to become the sons or daughters of God. Numerous scriptures speak of the need to become sons and daughters of God through being born again and entering into gospel covenants with God. We are to become his sons and daughters. And we become that way by following the things that He says, and by living the gospel that He has given us, and by fulfilling the commandments and keeping the covenant that He has given to us.
Maurine
When we are baptized, it is as if we are born again. We are put into water as if it’s the grave, and then we are laid down and immersed in water—a symbol for the grave. And then we come up again and we take upon ourselves a new name, which is Jesus Christ. So we become sons and daughters of Jesus Christ as we enter that covenant.
Scot
Let’s talk about this verse 18. This sometimes confuses people, especially in the King James Version.
Maurine
The King James Version in verse 18 says “No man hath seen God at any time[.]” (John 1:18).
Well, now our whole gospel is centered on the idea that many have seen God. The Old Testament we see examples of people who have talked face to face with God. We’ve seen, for example, that Jacob called the name of the place where he wrestled with God Peniel. “For I have seen God face to face,” he said, “and my life is preserved” (Genesis 32:30). Jacob tells us, I have seen God face to face.
We learn in Exodus that Moses spoke to the Lord face to face.
And Isaiah says, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts”, and that’s in Isaiah 6:5.
So there are three examples where prophets are saying very clearly that they’ve seen God face to face. And then we have this verse in 18 that clearly isn’t correct when it says no man hath seen God.
Scot
Well even the Savior Himself taught in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).
Maurine
In fact, it’s the goal of every one of us, right, to be able to see God. That is what our end journey is. And so to say that no man has seen God is just simply wrong.
Scot
We are so grateful to the Prophet Joseph who gave us this inspired change to this verse. Listen to it now with his inspired change.
“And no man hath seen God at any time, except he hath borne record of the Son; for except it is through him no man can be saved” (JST, John 1:19).
So, at the baptism of Jesus, we hear the Father bearing record of the Son. At the Mount of Transfiguration, we see the Father bearing record of the Son. In the Sacred Grove, we hear the Father bearing record of the Son. There’s the pattern.
Maurine
So John, in his desire to bear witness of Jesus Christ in His divinity, of course, starts the story with John the Baptist, whose follower he was. So let’s remember what we know about John the Baptist. First of all, he’s a miraculous child who was sent to Zacharias and Elizabeth in their old age. And his mission was great. We know that Zacharias was killed at the altar by those who had been sent by Herod to find John. And, obviously, Elizabeth had taken John to the wilderness and when she died that must have been where he stayed.
Scot
Great crowds came down from Jerusalem to see and hear John the Baptist. And we need to picture this journey from Jerusalem. Jerusalem sits up on a mountain, on a very large hill that’s 2800 feet above sea level. Where John was preaching it’s almost 1300 feet below sea level. So they would had to have made a 4100 foot vertical drop—a journey down—to get to where John the Baptist was preaching.
“John bare witness of him [of Jesus Christ], and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.
“And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.
“For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” (John 1:15-17)
So John the Baptist immediately bears witness of Jesus Christ. And he is that witness that John the Beloved or John the Revelator calls upon to give us that sure knowledge that this is the Messiah.
Maurine
There must have been quite a draw for people, including the Pharisees, to come from Jerusalem on that journey by foot out into the wilderness. The wilderness is not an easy place to be. It is barren of trees. It is a difficult place and not a convenient journey, really. So people must have felt hungry for that spiritual knowledge. They must have felt thirsty to understand more about that Messiah who would come. And frankly, they wanted to know who John the Baptist was.
Scot
Well, so the Sanhedrin sent certain people down there to figure out who he was. And they’re all ones who are studying the scriptures and they don’t necessarily get drawn to the Messiah, but they are trying to figure out things by their pharisaical codes and by their interpretations of the Law and their interpretations of the Prophets. So they send these certain ones down there to figure out who John is.
Maurine
So they ask him who he was, and they said,
“Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No” (John 1:21).
Scot
Of course they were asking if he was Eliyahu. The long tradition held that Eliyahu, or Elijah, as we know him, would return. But no, John answered, I’m not Elijah.
“Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself” (John 1:22)?
So, you see, the Sanhedrin as wicked as they were—many of them were anyway—they were always looking out for and determining fulfillment of prophecies according to the Torah and the prophets of old. They wanted to find out who this man was, dressed in rough clothing, and he was living in the wilderness and eating honey and locusts. And he’s creating this great stir among the people.
Maurine
And he makes it very clear that He who is coming “is preferred before me, whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose” (John 1:27).
Scot
So and then he identifies himself as an Elias, the one who was to make straight the way of the Lord, as Isaiah had prophesied. So he says, and he doesn’t deny, that is who I am. I’m this Elias who goes before the Lord to make straight the way for Him.
Maurine
And among those many who came to see John the Baptist were names we’re familiar with, including John who wrote this book—John the Revelator.
Scot
Of course, John was this enthusiastic apostle and follower of Christ. So much so that at the end of the time that he would be with the Savior he would ask a special request. He would say, can I stay until you come again? I mean, that’s an amazing, amazing request because you think about how he had already been through so much and all that the apostles would go through, but he asks to stay longer. Now, you think about that in today’s terms. Missionaries are always kind of geared up to transfers. Every six weeks there’s a transfer in most of the missions. And so what he was asking for was, may I just stay an additional 17,333 transfers? He would stay another 2000 plus years after the Savior because he wanted to bring souls to Christ. That’s how much he loved Him.
Maurine
And he wanted to bear the very testimony that he’s giving in John, that this is truly the Only Begotten Son of God. It’s very similar to what the Three Nephites asked in their yearning way in the Book of Mormon when Christ visited the Nephites. They asked if they could stay like John had.
“And he said unto them: Behold, I know your thoughts, and ye have desired the thing which John, my beloved, who was with me in my ministry, before that I was lifted up by the Jews, desired of me.
“Therefore, more blessed are ye, for ye shall never taste of death; but ye shall live to behold all the doings of the Father unto the children of men[.]” (3 Nephi 28:6-7)
So this was a request of these Three Nephites, as well as John. It gives us a sense of what became of John. He is living still with this incredible witness that he bears.
Scot
Now let’s go to verse 35 of John chapter one, because those last verses of John chapter one from 35 to 51 are an amazing pattern that we can see about following the Savior and about how we do our own work of witnessing and of missionary work.
Maurine
John the Baptist could have been very jealous about his own circle of followers, but that’s not who he was at all. I love this line in 36, when looking upon Jesus, John the Baptist says to his followers:
“Behold the Lamb of God! And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus” (John 1:36-37).
Scot
Well, in this next few verses, we see the word being passed along from person to person. And I love the term that they use over and over again: come and see. And we’ll see this. I was very interested in hearing this in the language that probably was spoken to each other, and sometimes it’s just nice to hear it in that language. So what the Savior would have said if He were talking to one of them, He would have said bo ti ré. That means come and see. Bo ti re. But then if He was talking to a number of them, which He did, He would say, bo’u tiru. So that means come and see. And they followed Him. And I love also one of the lines he says in verse 38,
“Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi[…]where dwellest thou” (John 1:38)?
That’s a good question for us, too. Where dwellest thou?
Maurine
Yes, because if we’re going to come and see, we have to find where He dwells. So many times we want the power of the Lord in our lives. We give Him long lists of requests and are angry if they’re not followed exactly, as if He were a cosmic bellboy. But instead, He asks us to come, not just to request. He wants us to come and see what He has to give us. What a beautiful thing it is. He’ll say, come and see. And what will you see? You’ll see that if you have a problem in your life that seems overwhelming, come and see how He can help you solve it. If you have a relationship that you can’t somehow make beautiful and loving in the way you hope it will be, He says, come and see. You come to Him and you learn something that is beyond what you could ever imagine. You’ll see something that is new, see something that is beautiful.
Scot
And He wants to give us His eyes. He wants us to see things the way He sees them. And as we do, it will bring us great joy and happiness.
A question that we could ask is, have we found the Messiah in our lives? Have we found this Jesus Christ? As we were studying this lesson, it caused me to review all those who had brought me to the Messiah, to this Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. These very witnesses today helped bring me to find the Messiah from the scriptures. Mary Magdalene helped me in my testimony. My mother helped me to come to know Jesus Christ. My Sunday School teacher had a powerful witness of the Savior that I will never forget that brought me to Him. I remember a chorister in a sacrament meeting in Germany who was leading the music when we sang Behold the Great Redeemer Die. I’ll never forget that. That brought me to the Messiah. My teachers quorum advisor helped to bring me to this Jesus Christ. And you know who it is in your own life. It would be well for you to review all those who had brought you to the Savior through your own life. It’s good this week to review those who have done that very thing for you. And once we have found Him, of course, we do everything to bring others to know Him, too.
Maurine
And I love that invitation not only for us to come and see, but to invite others to come and see. And we don’t always know who those people will be with our worldly eyes. We make judgments and say, oh, that person would be interested and that person would not. But we ran a story once on Meridian about a man named Roger Rohn who told his conversion story that happened in 1982, but I’ll never forget it. He lived on one of those back roads in Missouri, one of those roads that’s, like, not just got a number, it’s got a letter, maybe a double letter. It was like EE or HH or something. I mean, it was rural. It was so far back away from people he thought he was safe from anyone coming to his front door. But one day he looked out and he saw missionaries coming and he said, oh no, I don’t want to see them. And so he took his Doberman, which was usually hooked to the side of his house, and he put him on a 20 foot cable so that that Doberman would go right into the road and stop those missionaries in their tracks. He thought for sure that in that way he could seal off any access to himself. He said,
“The second part of my plan was equally simple. I would duck out the back door and hike up and over the hill behind my place to the General Store that stood at the junction and have a nice cold Coca-Cola until these two pass through my neighborhood.
“The first part of the plan completed,” he said, “I paused briefly at the kitchen window to check their progress and was surprised to see that they had entered my neighbor’s driveway, which was only about 50 feet away, and I knew that my neighbors weren’t home. It crossed my mind that if I intended to escape unseen, I would have to do it immediately. As I turned away from the window and was about to head for the back door, the thought crossed my mind that if these two wanted to talk to me, then perhaps I ought to find out what they had to say. But there was something immediately peculiar about that thought. I disagreed with it, and besides it seemed to me less a thought than an actual voice. I was seized by fear now that they wouldn’t want to talk to me. So I rushed outside and attempted to move Caesar before he scared them off. I was too late. As they passed this scary looking animal who was lunging at them at the cable’s end, I had miscalculated. He couldn’t reach the porch. One of them reached out and patted him on the head and added insult to injury by saying, ‘nice doggy,’ as he did so.”
Of course, this man who wanted to do anything to avoid the missionaries, so much so that he was going to sic his dog on them, joined the church. So you never can see who really in their heart wants to come and see. I think there’s a yearning in all of us to come and see.
Scot
As we come closer to the end of this chapter, we see in verse 43,
“The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and [he] findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me.
“…Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
“And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.
“Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!
“Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.” (John 1:43-48)
Maurine
I think this story means as much to me as any, because everything that other people told him didn’t register. But when he knew that Jesus knew him, that Jesus saw him, that no part of him was hidden from the Lord, he was known of the Lord, then he was interested. And I think this is what matters so much to me about my relationship with the Lord. I feel like no matter how I may seem to others, I feel like God sees my heart and He knows my intent. He knows my desires to do good and be good. And even though that doesn’t always work out, I feel like He sees me. Sometimes in our own family we have this little expression that we say to each other, “I see you.” When our intentions are misunderstood, or when someone doesn’t see us who we are, then someone who loves us says, I see you. I see the totality of who you are. And when Christ says that to us, I see you, it means He sees us from all eternities. He knows our ancient spirit. He knows our possibilities. And I love that. It makes me want to have this intense and ongoing relationship with the Lord, because to think that He sees me makes all the difference to me. So I love this moment and many others in the scriptures where it is clear that He sees the person He’s talking to who sometimes is misunderstood.
Scot
And I have to say to you, Maurine, I see you.
Next week’s lesson is Matthew 3, Mark 1, and Luke 3, and it’s entitled Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord. See you then.
Maurine
Thank you for being with us today.
