A Witness, a Testimony, and a Decision

John 1:6-13

Main Idea: God sent John the Baptist to tell us we need to make a life-defining decision about Jesus Christ.

1. John’s Call to Make a Decision about Jesus (1:6-10)
2. The People’s Decision to Reject Jesus (1:11)
3. The Result of Receiving Jesus (1:12)
4. Understanding the Decision to Receive Jesus (1:13)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the great Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, was born in Germany in 1904 and was coming of age as a scholar, teacher, and pastor when Hitler rose to power. Early on he recognized the great evil of the Nazi ruler. Bonhoeffer struggled with the role a Christian should play in a country being led into a path of destruction by a government whose cruelty seemed endless. At the height of World War II, Bonhoeffer joined a resistance movement, and he was arrested for helping a group of Jews escape to Switzerland. Later he was implicated in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. After two years in various prisons and concentration camps, he was marched down a flight of steps and, with a handful of other resistance members, executed. His execution took place just four weeks before the fall of the Nazi regime.

While in prison Bonhoeffer wrote letters to his family and close friends. One particularly sobering letter described his decision to join the resistance. He understood that even if they were successful, his life would never be the same—this one decision would define him. Can you imagine realizing that one decision would define your life? As we continue to study John, we learn that each one of us faces such a life-defining moment.

John’s Call to Make a Decision about Jesus

John 1:6-10

The text turns our attention for a moment from Jesus to a man called John the Baptist. God sent John to tell us about an important decision we need to make (vv. 6-8). John the Baptist is a new character in this Gospel, but he is not the author of this Gospel. The author of this Gospel—the apostle John—never refers to himself by name in this book. Every time we read the name John, it refers to John the Baptist. He appears on the scene to relay a message from God about Jesus, and it contains the call for a decision: What will you do with Jesus? John did not design the message; he was sent on a mission by God to deliver it. That’s why John is given the title witness. John is called to the witness stand and asked for specific information. We sit like the jury, needing to make a decision with the information. We must decide how we will respond to his testimony.

John is on the stand to share his testimony about the light. How many people have you ever told about light? Imagine giving someone a tour of your home. How many times did you have to say after turning on a light switch, “You probably didn’t notice it, but let me point out that there’s now light in this room.” They did not need to be told about the light. They could see it. Why did John need to tell people about the light? A. W. Pink answers:

When the sun is shining in all its beauty, who are the ones unconscious of the fact? Who need to be told it is shining? The blind! How tragic, then, when we read that God sent John to “bear witness of the light.” How pathetic that there should be any need for this! How solemn the statement that men have to be told “the light” is now in their midst. What a revelation of man’s fallen condition. (John, 26)

Jesus came as the light, but the world was blind and could not see it. The one who created the world was in the world, yet the world did not recognize him (vv. 9-12).

• Jesus made our eyes, yet we refused to see his glory.
• Jesus made our ears, yet we refused to listen to his words.
• Jesus made our heads, yet we refused to bow before him.

John illustrates what a proper witness of Jesus Christ does. John is not the light himself, but what he can do is reflect the light of Christ. In chapter 5 (v. 35) Jesus calls John “a burning and shining lamp.” John’s life pointed others to the true light and burned as a testimony to the transforming power of Jesus Christ. God sent John into the world to tell us we need to make a life-defining decision about Jesus Christ.

The People’s Decision to Reject Jesus

John 1:11

Jesus was not just ignored by the world in general. He came to his own people, and they did not receive him. God had chosen a special people for himself—the Jews. He had made a covenant with them and promised a Messiah who would come and deliver them from their sins. When Jesus arrived, they were seeking their Messiah, but they rejected him, the one promised and sent by God.

Even in the Jews’ rejection of Jesus, God was at work. God used it to usher in the salvation of the Gentiles. But the truth remains that the rejection of Jesus—whether it was the Jews two thousand years ago or you today—leaves a person in sin without a Savior. No one else can bring you salvation. No other light can pierce the darkness of your sin. Don’t turn your back on him, hoping your own good works will be enough—they won’t.

Jesus was rejected for the most part, but some turned and received him (v. 12). They had been lost in darkness, but they embraced the light. The only way some were able to receive him was by believing in his name. This is the key term in the Gospel of John, a term we find nearly one hundred times throughout the book. If we’re to receive Jesus Christ, we must completely rely on him.

The Result of Receiving Jesus

John 1:12

When we receive Jesus by believing in him, we become “children of God” (v. 12). We, who were dead in our trespasses and sin, are now brought into the family of God. Because of Jesus, we who deserve death are now made to share in God’s inheritance as his children. We don’t deserve this. We could never say, “I have given myself the right to be called a child of God.” Only Jesus can do it. He has the authority to declare that sinners, God haters like us, are now fully accepted children of the Father. Do you see now how this one decision to receive Christ completely defines our lives? Our lives are radically altered by our position in the family of God.

• We don’t need to fear the future because we are going to the Father’s house (John 14).
• We can stop worrying about whether our needs on this earth will be met because our Father gives good gifts to his children (Matt 7).
• We don’t need to be anxious about our 401k because we recognize that our inheritance is not in earthly banks but in the heavenly realm (Col 1).
• Our hope, our expectation, is not in this world. Someday, as children of the King, we will “shine like the sun in [our] Father’s kingdom” (Matt 13:43).

God sent John the Baptist to witness about Jesus. His witness forces each person to consider, Will I reject Jesus or will I receive him? What will I do with Jesus?

Understanding the Decision to Receive Jesus

John 1:13

If we are all lost in darkness, enjoying the perverse pleasures of sin, content to rebel against God, how do some believe? Verse 13 explains why some receive Jesus. Behind every decision a person makes to turn and receive Jesus stands the decision of God to give that person new life. We can only be saved through the direct intervention of God. Apart from his choice of us, we would never choose him.

Before we dive into the final phrase, “but of God,” which pulsates with the profound truth of God’s sovereignty, we should note three wrong reasons people think God saves them.

First, some think God saves people because of their racial or ethnic background(“not of natural descent”). This understanding pervaded Judaism in Christ’s day. There was a widespread belief that a person would be saved simply because Jewish blood flowed through his veins.

Second, some think God saves people because of their sincerity. The phrase “will of the flesh” pictures a man and a woman coming together with great passion to conceive a child. No matter how sincere or passionate you are about spiritual things, you will only be saved if God draws you to himself.

Third, some think God saves people because of their effort. The phrase “will of man” could be translated “will of the husband.” A husband and his wife can carefully plan to have a child, and their planning may pay off in nine months, but no man can plan his way into the family of God. No amount of work or human effort will bring a person spiritual life.

People will only experience the new birth if God chooses to regenerate them. Upholding every decision to believe is the foundation of God’s sovereign grace. James also attributes our new life to God’s choice: “By his own choice, he gave us birth by the word of truth” (Jas 1:18; emphasis added).

Many people don’t like this teaching because it detracts from man’s efforts. That’s exactly the point! The truth that God chooses sinners and those sinners simply respond (not the other way around) elevates God and humbles us. And humility is exactly what we need. Everything that has happened to a Christian for good, especially his salvation, is directly attributable to the work of God in him. Nothing in him merited salvation. Even when he exercised faith, he did so because God gave him that gift (Eph 2:8-9).

Conclusion

Shannon Brown, a good friend of mine, found himself in China on Mother’s Day, 2006. He and his wife were there to pick up the newest member of their family—a ten-month-old girl who had been abandoned the day after she was born. A few months before they went overseas to meet her and bring her home, he had written about their decision to adopt:

I think within a nanosecond of deciding to adopt we knew what our daughter’s name would be. In fact, I don’t really ever recall discussing it that much. Perhaps it’s because of why we chose to adopt. Our driving motivation was to rescue a little girl and give her a family with hope for the future.

This helpless little girl who lives on the other side of the earth will receive all of the benefits of being my child. I will clothe her and feed her. She will take on my name and receive my deepest affection. She will be the object of my love. My energies will be directed towards helping, instructing and training her to be happy, with a secure knowledge that I will never leave her. I will pour out my heart to introduce her to the Savior of the world who can take away all her sins and give her eternal security.

Of course, all of this is done as we completely depend on God and his strength.

Where would we be without the love of God? Where would we be without him revealing himself to us in Scripture? Where would we be without him divinely sacrificing his own Son and seeking us out to rescue us?

So for us, and what this adoption is a reflection of, we only had one name to choose from . . . Grace. (Used by permission)

Is there a better word than grace to describe the adoption of this little girl? She could do nothing to become part of this family. No desire on her part would have connected her with this man and woman who would become mommy and daddy. Her adoption into this loving family was the result of someone outside of herself choosing to love her, to receive her, and to give her the right to be called their child. Someone had to do for her what she could not do for herself. That’s grace, and that’s exactly what happened to us who have believed on the name of Jesus. Like this little girl, we were helpless and hopeless until someone did for us what we could not do for ourselves. God chose to love us. He received us to himself, and he gave us the right to be called his children. This is grace.

Reflect and Discuss

1. What are some major decisions that have shaped your life?
2. Why was it necessary for John the Baptist to be sent to bear witness to the light?
3. How are you bearing witness to the light of Jesus?
4. In what ways did the world not recognize Jesus?
5. When was the first time you were called to make a decision about Jesus? What was your response?
6. How was the Jews’ decision to reject Jesus a part of God’s redemptive plan for the world?
7. How is your life radically altered through becoming a child of God?
8. What are three wrong reasons people think God saves them?
9. What is grace? How is it different from mercy (not receiving a punishment you deserve)?
10. How can God’s movement to save those he chooses by his own will be a truth worth celebrating?