Jesus According to... Jesus

People often speculate about the identity of Jesus. Many like to come up with their own ideas about who Jesus is based loosely on Scripture but more heavily on their own ideas of who they prefer or suppose he ought to have been. Others are simply unwilling to embrace the identity of Jesus as revealed in the Bible because the biblical Jesus does not fit all their cultural, personal, and emotional criteria. But the reality is that Jesus himself has spoken with clarity on the matter of his identity.

The Gospel According to John paints a particularly vivid picture of Jesus' identity for us. One aspect of the literary artistry of John’s Gospel was his intentional highlighting of seven occasions on which Jesus described who he was through the use of what are often called “I am sayings.” These “I am sayings” (I am the Light of the World, I am the Good Shepherd, etc.) give us a description, in his own words, of who Jesus is. Another of John’s literary devices was his description of miracles of Jesus. John includes only seven of Jesus’ miracles but he chooses those seven with careful intentionality. He is unique among the gospel writers in referring to them as “signs.” His use of this terminology highlights the fact that each of these seven miracles was not merely an example of Jesus’ power on display but that they were each signs pointing to some aspect of who Jesus is and what he came to do.

So Jesus' identity need not be as mysterious as some would make it out to be. On Sunday evenings at City on a Hill each week for the next few months we will be looking at the identity of Jesus based on the bold claims he made about himself and based on the miraculous deeds he performed as recorded in the Gospel According to John - seven I am sayings and seven signs. In each sermon in this series, entitled Jesus According to… Jesus, we will be challenging ourselves to consider what difference these realities of his identity should make in our lives. Join us on Sunday evenings at 5:30 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, and check back with the City on a Hill Blog each week for material related to the sermon for that week. This Sunday, February 21, we open the series looking at Jesus' bold claim in John 8:59, “…before Abraham was, I am.”