A reading path
Who Jesus is, in Scripture's own order
Loading John 1:1-3…
John does not begin with a teacher in Galilee. He begins before creation, with the Word who was with God and was God, and everything else about Jesus is read in that light.
Questions about Jesus are usually asked in a particular order, whether or not the reader notices it. First who he is, then whether the claim to deity is really in the text, then what the title Son of God means, then why he came at all, then why the cross was necessary, then whether the resurrection happened, and only then what following him costs. Read in that order each answer supplies what the next one assumes, so nothing rests on a single verse lifted out of place.
Read in this order
1. Start with how Scripture introduces him
Who is Jesus?
Scripture introduces Jesus of Nazareth as a real man in real history who is also the eternal Word through whom everything was made. He is the promised Christ of Israel, the Son of God, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised on the third day, and now confessed as Lord. The Bible never presents him only as a teacher, and it never lets him remain a private opinion. It records him asking his own followers the question and waiting for their answer.
Before any argument, the Gospels state who he is: the Word made flesh, the Christ, the Son of Man who came to serve.
2. Then weigh the claim to deity
Is Jesus God?
Scripture says yes, and it does not say it in one verse only. Jesus is called God directly, is said to have made all things, forgives sins, receives worship, and takes to himself words that the Old Testament reserves for Yahweh. At the same time he prays to the Father, obeys the Father and calls the Father greater. The Bible holds both together without apology, and the reader who wants an honest answer has to read the whole case rather than one proof text.
This is the question most readers reach next, and it is settled by what Jesus said, what he received in worship, and what the apostles wrote, not by one proof text.
3. Then let the title be defined by the Bible
Why is Jesus called the Son of God?
Son of God is first a royal title from Israel's Scriptures, promised to David's heir, and Scripture applies it to Jesus as the true king. In the Gospels it carries more than kingship: the angel uses it of his conception, the Father's voice uses it at his baptism, and his hearers understood him to be claiming equality with God by calling God his own Father. It does not mean that God had a wife, or that the Son began at Bethlehem, or that he is a lesser second god.
Son of God is a biblical title with a biblical meaning, drawn from Psalm 2 and the Gospels, and misreading it distorts everything after it.
4. Then ask what he came to do
Why did Jesus come to earth?
Scripture answers this in his own words more than once. He came to seek and to save the lost, to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many, to do the will of the Father who sent him, to bear witness to the truth, to fulfil the law and the prophets, to destroy the works of the devil, and to give life. Not one of those statements is about setting an example only, and every one of them ends up at the cross and the empty tomb.
He states his own purpose plainly, which keeps the answer from becoming a summary of his teaching alone.
5. Then face the necessity of the cross
Why did Jesus have to die?
Jesus died because sin has a real penalty, death, and God chose to bear that penalty himself rather than simply overlook it. Scripture presents the cross as a substitution: the sinless one carrying the guilt of the guilty, so that God could remain just and still forgive. It was not an accident that overtook him. It was the plan he came to fulfil.
The death is not an interruption of his mission. Scripture presents it as the reason he came, and explains why nothing less would do.
6. Then examine the resurrection
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
The New Testament says yes and puts the claim in a form that can be tested rather than admired. Paul lists named witnesses and a group of over five hundred still living when he wrote. The accounts describe a body that could be touched and that ate, not a vision. They also record the first alternative explanation, that the disciples stole him, and record who paid for it. Scripture treats the resurrection as the point on which everything stands or falls, and says so in those words.
Paul stakes the whole faith on it and names the witnesses, so the claim is offered for examination rather than for feeling.
7. Then ask what the resurrection secured
Why did Jesus rise from the dead?
Jesus rose bodily from the dead because his death alone would have left the debt of sin paid but not proven, and death itself unconquered. The resurrection is God's public verdict that the sacrifice was accepted, his vindication of Christ's claims, and the guarantee that everyone united to Christ by faith will share the same risen life. Without it, Scripture itself says the Gospel would be worthless.
That it happened and what it accomplished are two different questions, and Scripture answers the second at length.
8. Finally, what he asks of you
What does it mean to follow Jesus?
In the Gospels following Jesus begins with his call, not with our decision to improve. It means going where he goes, learning from him, remaining in his word, loving as he loved, and denying yourself daily rather than adding him to the life you already had. He states the cost openly, including family, possessions and your own life, and in the same Gospels he offers rest, a light burden and his own presence. Following is not a mood; it is a direction, and it is walked one day at a time.
Following is the response Scripture calls for once the earlier answers are in place, and Jesus states its cost before its comfort.
Keep these passages open
- John 1:1-18The Word who was God, made flesh among us.
- Colossians 1:15-20The image of the invisible God, in whom all things hold together.
- Philippians 2:5-11The one who did not grasp at equality with God, and the name given him.
- 1 Corinthians 15:3-8The gospel Paul received, with the death, burial, resurrection and witnesses.
- Luke 9:23-24The terms Jesus set for anyone who would come after him.
What Scripture does not tell us
Scripture does not satisfy every curiosity about Jesus. It says almost nothing about his appearance, little about the years between childhood and his baptism, and it does not explain how one person is fully God and fully man. What it states, it states clearly. What it leaves unsaid should be left unsaid rather than filled in.
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