Believing Jesus is Who He Says and Finding Life in His Name

This is an excerpt from the John - Storyteller Bible Study.

Like all stories, John starts at the beginning. Prior to John, the phrase “In the beginning” was only used one other time in Scripture—in the first line of the first book of the Bible, Genesis.

At the start John takes us all the way back to the very beginning of the Bible, to the very beginning of time itself. But John uses these words in his prologue for different reasons than Moses used them in Genesis. John gives us a different angle on the same story because John is telling us a specific story.

He wants us to know Jesus was part of the plan from the beginning. Like God the Father, God the Son was present at the creation of the world.

Like God the Father, God the Son was present at the creation of the world. And in the beginning of John, we learn about a new beginning through a new covenant that will lead to new life. Just as the original creation account in Genesis 1 took seven days, John structured the first twelve chapters of his Gospel around seven miracles, or signs, to show us Jesus’s true identity as the One who is truly man and truly God.

Each sign is like holding a diamond up to the light: with each turn, rather than seeing a different diamond, you see more of its beauty in this new “creation” account. Each of these signs is concluded with a report letting us know how the people responded to Jesus. In stark contrast to gods worshiped by the broader culture at the time of the writing, we see that the Word (Jesus) descended from His throne to live among us (see John 1:14). Jesus is a wholly different ruler, the face and embodiment of God the Father. He wasn’t simply staying in heaven, doling out rules and tasks. Culturally and theologically different than what most expected, Jesus is “the true light that gives light to everyone” (1:9). That light didn’t just extend to first-century readers: you and I aren’t beyond this Light’s reach. He is being revealed to us in the pages of John’s Gospel.

We all love that part of the movie where the story begins to unfold and things start to make sense—which is exactly where we find ourselves in John 2. Jesus began to reveal His divinity, to show that He’s not just another prophet, a great teacher, or a mere man.

Here we witness the first of seven signs John highlighted to prove Jesus is God. To us, turning water into wine might seem like a cool party trick or even a magic trick. Those are things that pass as “miraculous” to us. However, every time Jesus performed a miracle, He was making a claim to His identity. The miracles (or signs) in John all disclose to the people in the story (and to us) that this Man is not like other men—He does things only God can do.

John tells us these signs “revealed his glory” (2:11) and led His disciples to believe in Him. As we read, though, we realize that this isn’t just some party trick or a feat to impress guests: Jesus actually turned six jars of water into six jars of wine as a demonstration of His power and divinity. The disciples’ response was the intended response. Why is turning water into wine so significant? What should have taken years to accomplish, the maturing of fine wine, Jesus accomplished in a moment. Though it may seem a small thing to us, scientists would tell you that the amount of energy needed to transform this amount of liquid would be staggering. Yet it was done without any exertion and without drawing the attention of any attendants.

Jesus’s ability to transform the water into wine is a glimpse into His total control over the physical world. On the execution of this sign, Jesus revealed command and control of nature and painted the first strokes of His true identity: the Son of God.

Throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus performed seven signs that serve as proofs for His identity as the Son of God. They were a part of a growing body of evidence that John used to support his central goal—to have people believe in Jesus and find life in His name.