The First Sign of the Messiah

Messiah is recorded in John chapter 2 in the first 12 verses, really the first 11, but 12 kind of helps as a segue into the next event. So we will be looking at these first 12 verses this morning, the first sign of the Messiah.

Please stand with me for the reading of God's Word, the Gospel of John starting in chapter 2. And on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. And both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding.

And when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, They have no wine. And Jesus said to her, Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, Whatever he says to you, do it.

Now there were six stone water jars set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing two or three measures each. Jesus said to them, Fill the water jars with water. So they filled them up to the brim.

And he said to them, Draw some out now and take it to the head waiter. So they took it to him. Now when the head waiter tasted the water, which had become wine, and did not know where it had, where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the head waiter called the bridegroom and said to him, Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then the inferior wine.

But you have kept the good wine until now. Jesus did this in Cana of Galilee as the beginning of his signs and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. After this, he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there a few days.

You may be seated. The first sign of the Messiah. In an online blog about discerning whether something you see or read on the internet is true, one author asked this question, How can you tell if something is true?

And the example of trickery they pointed to was a picture of a great white shark someone had shared on Twitter. And if you're online at all, you likely have seen this image. It's been circulated. The picture showed what appeared to be a great white shark in a flooded water on a highway.

You could see the highway markers next to this pool of water and there's a great white shark. The caption on the post read this, Whoa, my cousin in Tampa took this picture. Apparently, Hurricane Ian pushed a great white shark inland, and it's casually swimming around on Interstate 275.

So even a claim of knowing where the thing came from. The article explained that an image that seems to show just that was shared by many people after Hurricane Ian struck Florida in 2022. It was also widely shared after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, Texas in 2017.

So apparently the shark was just hanging out for several years at these hurricanes. Yeah, it's a fake. It's a flooded highway image and then combined with one of a great white shark. The same image was circulating as far back as 2011 after Hurricane Irene slammed Puerto Rico.

The author was making this point. When deciding whether to trust a piece of information, it's good to start with three main questions. Who said it? What evidence did they give? And very important, how much do you want to believe it?

How much do you want to believe it? Who said it? Well, a source is where information comes from, right? You get information from sources every day, from teachers, parents, and friends to people you've never met on news sites.

You can think of fan channels, social media. You probably have sources you trust and ones you don't. But why? What's the evidence? Well, evidence is what you show when someone says prove it. It's the details that support what a source is saying.

Primary sources are people or groups who are directly involved with the information. They're the best sources, primary sources. Secondary sources are one step removed. For example, news stories based on primary sources.

In some cases, they aren't as strong as primary sources but are still useful. And then do you want to believe it? Very important. Emotions can get in the way of knowing what's true. Messages that make you feel strong emotions, especially ones that are funny or make you angry, are the most important ones to check.

But they're also the hardest to ignore. And the advertisers know this. Many ads try to be funny or make the things they're selling look cool because they want you to focus on how you feel rather than what you think.

And being older doesn't mean you're automatically better at spotting false information. 41 of 18 to 34-year-olds and 44 of adults 65 and older admitted to having fallen for a fake news story according to a 2018 study.

So really not a difference there. Other research showed adults over 65 were seven times as likely to share articles from fake sites as younger people were. That's interesting and may or may not be helpful to us.

I think there is common sense and wisdom in asking those kind of questions. Obviously in a world where we are being pulled in so many different directions and there is constant pressure to believe one thing or another or to pick one side or the other, in a world that's battling for control of your mind, it's good to have something in place to decide what to believe and what not to believe.

For us as believers, we have a tremendous advantage because we have the Word of God. We can hold truth claims against the Bible. Really, does what you're being told match up with Scripture? And if it doesn't, then it's not true.

But also if the Bible is true, and it is, and specifically the Apostle John's claims about Jesus, then truth will be clear to discern and will always pass the test of rigorous examination. If we examine the claims of John asking these questions, the truth will out.

Who said it? In this case, it's the Apostle John, an historical person who was an eyewitness to the life, death, and resurrection of the historical figure Jesus of Nazareth, as accounted in the facts of history in the Greek New Testament manuscripts and the extra-biblical historical writings of the early church historians.

What's the evidence? John is the primary source as an eyewitness. The primary sources include the complete New Testament gospel manuscripts that go back 2 ,000 years ago and exist in physical copies in the thousands.

I'm talking the original documents. A secondary source would be the other three gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, whose writings in the original New Testament Greek gospel manuscripts are dated and survive as historical documents from 2 ,000 years ago.

There are 2 ,600 ,000 pages of Greek New Testament manuscripts, just the pages themselves, almost 3 million. Bruce Metzger, the Bible scholar and translator, said this, the quantity of New Testament material is almost embarrassing in comparison with other works of antiquity.

There are 5 ,800 Greek New Testament manuscripts in complete form. The theologian and Christian apologist William Lane Craig said this, the New Testament is the best-attested book in ancient history, both in terms of the number of manuscripts and the nearness of those manuscripts to the date of the original.

There are 23 ,000 total New Testament manuscripts. The Greek scholar and linguist Daniel Wallace said this, it just doesn't matter how you look at this. The New Testament, far and away, is the best-attested ancient document from the Greco-Roman world.

Do we have an embarrassment of riches? Oh, we sure do. In fact, on the basis of manuscript evidence, we can say that we have 1 ,000 times more evidence that Jesus Christ existed than we do that Alexander the Great existed.

Did you know that we have more surviving original documents depicting Jesus of Nazareth than on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle's writings combined? And finally, the last question, do you want to believe it?

In this case, if we answer fairly and truthfully in our hearts, then we can admit no. No, the unbelieving mind does not want to believe that there is a God, and we have to answer to him for our sin? The unbeliever loves their sin and does not want to give it up.

A desire to believe bias does not exist here for the unbelieving. From the majority of people, not wanting to believe actually lends credibility that it is true in some cases, and there is another side to that too.

The one God has drawn to himself with repentance and conviction of sin wants to believe in the hope that God will pardon them. You don't want to believe because that means being accountable to God. You will want to believe when you come to the hard truth and the realization that you are accountable to God.

As we look at today's passage and the eyewitness testimony of the Apostle John, let's look with eyes unclouded by intellectual dishonesty, by worldly presuppositions, and by the prideful Antichrist spirit of our contemporary culture.

The Circumstances of the Sign

Who said it? What's the evidence? Do you want to believe it? In today's passage, the Apostle John records the first sign miracle of Jesus of Nazareth so that you can know that as the Messiah, Jesus is the only source of life.

He's the only source of life, and I really broke this up just right down the middle, almost right down the middle. We'll look at it in two ways. The circumstances of the sign in verses 1 through 5 and the consequences of the sign in verses 6 through 12.

So let's look at the first five verses together, the circumstances of the sign. And on the third day, there was a wedding, a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there, and both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding.

And when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, whatever he says to you, do it.

John gives us more precise data on time and place. A few possibilities here on the third day, meaning that this is to be understood as the same day that Andrew and Peter were called. Remember that we spent four days starting with the eyewitness of John the Baptist.

That doesn't seem to fit given that John says that Jesus desired to go into Galilee on the fourth day of that eyewitness account from the Baptist. It seems best to take this time referring to the last narrated event in the calling of Philip and Nathanael.

Cana was about three days journey from where John the Baptist was baptizing there near Bethsaida. The suggestion is that Jesus would take about two days to reach Galilee from there. And this was the third day from the calling of Philip and Nathanael.

The reference here in verse one in connection with the other mentioned days in chapter one means that there is a strong possibility that the miracle at Cana took place at the conclusion of a seven day period.

That would mean that the apostle John was recounting the events in the first week of Jesus's earthly ministry. The time was seven days since the witness of John the Baptist. The place was Cana of Galilee, the hometown of Nathanael.

We know that from the gospel of John later in chapter 21, Simon Peter and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee. So we understand that Nathanael is from Cana. New Testament scholarship promotes a probable location in Kirbet Cana, a village now in ruins approximately nine miles north of Nazareth.

We can rightly assume that Cana was near the city of Nazareth since the mother of Christ came there to attend the marriage. In verses one and two, John gives us the who of the time and place. The who were Jesus's mother and the disciples.

This would have been the five disciples that are mentioned in chapter one, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael, John, who is the unnamed disciple from verse 35 of chapter one, and likely John's brother James.

Remember, James and John were called on the same day as Andrew and Peter. John tells us Mary was already there, and Jesus and his disciples were invited too. Verse three starts this exchange between Mary and Jesus, as John records the exact words they had spoken.

Mary would have likely seen this as an embarrassment to the host, as she noticed the wine had ran out and she communicated it to Jesus. And in verse four, we might think that calling Mary woman seems odd, but the vocal form of the word for woman is in no way disrespectful.

Jesus would later use this same term on the cross when he told his beloved mother that his disciple John would take care of her as he was preparing to hand his soul into the father's hands. John chapter 19, when Jesus then saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved, referring to John, standing nearby, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son.

Jesus loved his mother. And another verse where John describes himself in the third person, making it clear he is the unnamed disciple in chapter one. Go back to chapter one, just starting in verse 35.

On the next day, John again was standing with two of his disciples. The John there is the Baptist. And he looked at Jesus as he walked and said, behold, the lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak and follow Jesus.

And when Jesus turned and noticed them following, he said to them, what do you seek? They said to him, rabbi, which translated means teacher, where are you staying? And he said to them, come and you will see.

So they came and saw where he was staying and they stayed with him that day. It was about the 10th hour, 10 a .m. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.

So we don't get to hear who the other disciple was there. It was John. It was John the apostle. There is an implication in our passage this morning that Mary may have been asking Jesus to do something about the wine situation.

Obviously, she knew who her son was, but she was probably not directly asking Jesus to do a miracle. I don't think that's the right way to take this passage. We can literally read this question Jesus asks like this, what to me and to you?

What to me and to you? The assumption that his response is irritation because he points out his hour has not yet come is not correct. This is a Hebrew idiom. This was a form of expression natural to the Hebrews.

One Hebrew language scholar pointed this out. The similar phrase, what to me, also occurs in the Hebrew Bible at times in combination with to you, as in John 2, verse 4. The most generic way to capture what the full statement what to me to you means is what is there that concerns me in you.

Context should steer the translator to word choices that move the translation from this neutral meaning to something that captures the situation, whether it is adversarial or congenial. There is no reason to see John's use of the idiomatic expression as indicative of irritation or that his mother had become insufferable to Jesus.

When Jesus says to Mary, what to me to you, he isn't saying, what is it now, lady? He's basically asking his mother, who brings a concern to him, what can I do for you? What can I do for you? There may be a degree of reproach, but this is not rudeness.

His question before gently setting her straight implies gentleness, and the phrase simply asks what is shared in common between the two parties. The takeaway here in Jesus's statement of the hour was that his earthly ministry had started, and it would not end until the time of his death and resurrection, of course, and the ascension.

In the interim, he would now be engaged in the purpose of his mission on earth. In other words, Jesus placed all of his activities under the completion of that mission. The phrase about his hour not coming always referred to his death and then exaltation in resurrection, meaning Jesus was now on the Father's divine schedule as he came to do the Father's will.

However, what Mary and the disciples didn't know and couldn't know is that Jesus was about to do his Father's will and reveal or authenticate the messianic claims that his disciples had rightly made about him and that he himself had made.

Remember, he says the Son of Man. He's already referred to himself as the one Daniel had described. Jesus was about to show I am the Son of Man. I am the Son of God. I am the King of Israel. I am the Messiah.

Here, let me show you. And Mary got it real quick. Look how she responds in verse five. A couple things to consider here. At this point in her life, her husband Joseph was likely dead, and Mary would have been used to asking Jesus for help in different situations.

It doesn't mean she was asking him to do a miracle. Also, even if Mary didn't understand what Jesus was going to do, she knew to listen to him, and she directed others to listen to him. Jesus's answer to Mary is perhaps difficult to understand, but maybe that is the point.

Although Mary did not understand what Jesus was going to do, she trusted him to do what was right. Those who believe in Jesus but run into situations they cannot understand must continue to trust that he will work in the best way.

In verse five, she says essentially, do whatever he says. Do whatever he says. Remember, Mary is more than Jesus's mother. He is her Savior. Mary submitted to Jesus's way of doing things. Of course, considering his birth and the angelic encounter at her conception, Mary knew who Jesus truly was.

She would have recognized that Jesus was more than her human son. Jesus was the Son of God. Mary knew this. Yeah, it made me, this passage and thinking about Mary's just automatic, like, do whatever he says.

It made me think of a time a few years ago, my family and I went to Hawaii. God blessed us to be able to go to Hawaii for our summer vacation, and we rented some wave runners. It's a fun activity. You rent them for an hour, and you go out.

They kind of, like, push you out on a little pier. So there's me and my son Noah, and we get pushed out, and immediately we tip over. So now we're, like, trying to climb back in. My son was driving Jackson.

Some of you have visited with him. He's visited a few times here. Jackson, at the time, was old enough to drive by himself. My daughter Maddie was not. So Jackson is driving. Maddie's on the back, and they pushed him out immediately.

They fall over. So they're climbing back up, and Jackson just looks real nervous, and he's kind of, like, barely throttling. It looks kind of iffy, like, I hope he can do this, and one of the instructors had come over and was sort of, like, pushing him out in the right area to go do the wave running, and this guy was sort of, like, long hair.

You know, you're in Hawaii. He's, like, no shirt. He's the guy working there. He has a hat. He kind of looked, I don't know, like a really friendly guy, but he kind of looked like a hippie, just, like, long hair, this kind of, like, eccentric personality, and as he's looking at my son going out, who he has just helped get back on, he looks at him, and he kind of, he just sort of, like, as he's looking at my son driving away, he says, Jesus, take the wheel, and it was a funny, you know, moment.

I don't know if this guy was saved or not. I didn't get a chance to speak with him, but, you know, we hear this statement, Jesus, take the wheel, but, you know, there's something in that where here's this guy in a totally unconnected, just this circumstance that happens, but in that little moment when I saw that happen, yeah, it's funny, but also it's, like, this is deep inside every person.

I don't know whether he was a believer or not, but there's an idea that Jesus is the one that's in control of the events in our life, and at some point, you know, we have to let Him guide us. We have to trust Him in whatever's going on in our lives.

Mary may not have understood what Jesus was about to do, but she trusted Jesus to do what is right. For all of us who believe in Jesus but run into situations we cannot understand, we must continue to trust that He will work in the best way.

That's not always our way. You must continue to trust Jesus to do what is right. When you pray to God and you share your problems to Christ, you may even think you know how Jesus should take care of them, but God may have a completely different plan.

Like Mary, we should submit and allow Jesus to deal with the problem as He sees best. He's the Lord. You are not. We don't have to understand. We don't have to agree. We need to trust. We need to follow His plan, not ours.

John recorded the first sign miracle of Jesus of Nazareth so that you can know that as the Messiah, Jesus is the only source of life. The circumstances of the sign show that Jesus knows exactly what He is doing, and He does not act without intention and purpose.

The circumstances of this first sign show that Jesus knows exactly what He is doing, and He does not act without intention and purpose. What a helpful, you know, just these little clues in here, these little details that John gives us for us to remember.

Nothing in our life happens that hasn't first passed through the hand of the Father. We need to trust Jesus. So that's the circumstances of the sign, and now we'll look at the consequence of the sign.

The Consequence of the Sign

The consequence of the sign in verses 6 through 12. Now there were six stone water jars set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing two or three measures each. Jesus said to them, to the servants, fill the water jars with water.

So they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, draw some out now and take it to the head waiter. So they took it to him. Now when the head waiter tasted the water, which had become wine and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the head waiter called the bridegroom and said to him, every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then the inferior wine.

But you've kept the good wine until now. Jesus did this in Cana of Galilee as the beginning of His signs, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him. After this, He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother, and His brothers, and His disciples, and they stayed there a few days.

John adds more historical and cultural information for his readers. The six stone water jars were normally used for ceremonial washing. It's believed that the jars would hold about 20 to 30 gallons when full.

So these are big. This seemingly unimportant detail adds authenticity to the account. And this was according to the Jews' ceremonial law. The gospel of Mark is helpful here. Mark chapter 7 records this little insert.

It says, for the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash themselves.

And there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups, and pitchers, and copper pots. That's Mark chapter 7 verses 3 and 4. Just a helpful note for us to consider this.

What is this six stone jar thing here? At this point, it would make sense that the water had been used for the cleaning of hands, and even for feet, and those in attendance. Jesus simply tells the servants to fill the water jars with water.

And you can think probably their response was, does this guy think no one's going to notice? The wines ran out. The wine is out, fill them with water. John doesn't give us insight into what they were thinking or how they responded, except that they listened and filled them all the way to the top.

As Jesus instructs them to pour some out for the head waiter to taste, the servants also did as he asked. And in an instant, from the pouring to the drawing, and from the tasting by the head waiter, a miracle had occurred.

The water had become wine. John now gives us a clue about the servant's reaction. He tells us that the head waiter knew it was wine, but not where it had come from. However, John makes sure to add that the servants knew where it had come from.

John wasn't the only eyewitness to this amazing signed miracle. And we can only imagine the amazing astonishment of the servants knowing what had just taken place. We don't have to imagine what the head waiter was thinking.

John gives us the precise comment from the head waiter. Every man serves the good wine first, and then when they have become drunk, the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now. It wasn't just water into wine.

Remember, he didn't know. He exclaims, this is the good stuff. This is the good wine. And then John explains why this happened. Why did Jesus do this miracle at this exact time and place? Jesus did this in Cana of Galilee as the beginning of his signs, and manifested his glory.

And his disciples believed in him. Jesus manifested his glory. And John may be saying Jesus caused to become visible, to reveal, to expose publicly, but more accurately, think about it like Jesus caused to become known.

This is to disclose, to show, to make known. Jesus showed or caused to become known his glory. This is the condition of being bright or shining. Brightness, splendor, radiance. This can be a physical phenomenon or of humans involved in transcendent circumstances and also transcendent beings like the angels, the cherubim.

The word is used in the New Testament to describe also of those who appear before God. We can look at the example of Moses. In 2 Corinthians chapter 3, it says, but if the ministry of death in letters having been engraved on stones came with glory so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which was being brought to an end.

Just by spending time in the presence of God, the glory of God was shining on Moses' face. The word is used for Christians in the next life, 1 Corinthians 15, so also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a corruptible body.

It is raised an incorruptible body. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. Glory as it relates to the final judgment, Romans 3, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Jesus is the Lord of glory, 1 Corinthians 2, which none of the rulers of this age has understood for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Jesus himself is having a radiant, glorious body.

Philippians chapter 3, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity, into the body of His glory, by working through which He is able to even subject all things to Himself.

The concept has been widened to denote glory, majesty. This is the sublimity of God in general. As we consider resurrection Sunday, Christ was raised from the dead by the majesty or glory of God. And here in verse 11, the thought of power and might is also present.

One commentator said this on verse 11, John used the word signs, and he used it here to refer to significant displays of power that pointed beyond themselves to the deeper divine realities that could be perceived by the eyes of faith.

By this word, John emphasized that miracles were not merely displays of power, but had a significance beyond the mere acts themselves. And John used the same word in chapter 1. Go back to chapter 1 in verse 14.

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. This is the one who became flesh, God Himself. This is the physical body or the material that covers the bones of a human.

Often the word can even describe an animal body, specifically one who is or becomes a physical being. The word became flesh, but the glory is of transcendent entities. The eternally preexistent God of heaven and earth became a human being.

And John said this one dwelt temporarily with us. He tabernacled with us. And John makes it clear in verse 14 of chapter 1 that they beheld His glory. The we is John and the other apostles. He says, we saw this.

And if you think about that compared to what he's saying in verse 11, Jesus did this sign in Cana of Galilee as the beginning of His signs and manifested His glory and His disciples believed in Him. It takes us back to the purpose of the gospel account.

The purpose of belief in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God developed in John is the claim of Jesus' oneness with God and the signs Jesus performed. From the start of John, the apostle describes Jesus' equality with God.

The claim of Christ's oneness with the Father are made directly by Jesus. As assigned to His deity, Jesus performed many miracles. John was written to give an eyewitness testimony to the Jewish people of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus with the evangelistic purpose of demonstrating Jesus was the Messiah.

And believing in Him is the only way to eternal life. At the end of the gospel, John writes that his purpose for recording the miracles of Jesus is so that the reader will believe and have life. The miracles of Jesus were witnessed by many people and were in great number that exceeds the records in the various gospels.

The Messiahship of Jesus removes any other person from the office of the Christ and proves that faith in Jesus is the only pathway to heaven. John says we beheld His glory, and John describes the glory, glory as the unique only one of a kind, the only one of His kind from the Father, the second person of the triune God.

The Son became a human man. What John is saying in his gospel account is profound. Essentially, Jesus as God displayed the same fundamental glory as the Father. So, when Jesus the baby was conceived, God had become flesh.

God had become a man, and He was not part man and part God. Jesus was truly human and truly God. Before Jesus came into the world, mankind could only know God partially in what had been revealed through His prophets.

But now Jesus the Christ had come as the complete expression of God in the physical form of a man. And after Jesus came, mankind could know God fully because He became visible in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, because Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ.

God became tangible and dwelt with humans. We dare not sugarcoat or diminish the true Jesus of the Bible. These are the truths we must stand on to understand Jesus. Jesus as God displayed the same fundamental glory as the Father.

John ends the account of the first week in chapter 2 verse 12 by transitioning us into the next narrated event. Before Jesus went up to Jerusalem, He and His mother and disciples went to Capernaum. When John picks up the eyewitness record, he recounts how Jesus went to Jerusalem to cleanse the temple to inaugurate His earthly messianic revealing.

We know that Capernaum was where Jesus returned to frequently, you know, visit. It was kind of like His home base during His ministry in the region of Galilee. Jesus would call Levi or Matthew in Capernaum.

That makes sense as the city really was located on a trade route used by many, many people. It was a Roman garrison. It had a custom station. It had tax collectors. We know Matthew was there who would have worked for the empire.

The gospel of Matthew tells us when Jesus left Nazareth, He came and lived in Capernaum. We also know from Matthew and Luke's gospel that Jesus condemned Capernaum for the people's unbelief despite living there, making the city His home base in Galilee.

In this account, Jesus turned water into wine. He took one thing and made it into something else. He revealed His glory. The first sign miracle shows Jesus transforms and makes new because Jesus is the source of life.

I heard a story of a traveling evangelist who said this. The man said, I was holding a series of evangelistic meetings in a church in Virginia. He said one evening, a visiting minister was asked to open with prayer.

And the visiting minister said this. He said, Lord, grant Thy blessing as Thy word is preached tonight. May it be the means of causing people to fall in love with the Christ life that they may begin to live the Christ life.

And the evangelist said, I felt like saying, brother, sit down, don't insult God like that. But I felt I had to be courteous and I knew that my turn would come when I could set forth the precious truth as to God's way of salvation.

The gospel is not asking men to try to live the Christ life. If our salvation depended upon doing that, apart from a second birth, we would all be just as good as checked through to hell. It is impossible for an unregenerate man to live the Christ life, no matter how much he may admire as seen in Jesus.

Impossible as it would be for one who had no sense of tune or rhythm to live the Beethoven life or the life of any other great musician. One may enjoy music and admire musical ability who could never play or sing himself.

It is the soul of a musician to enable one to live a musician's life just as it takes the eye and hand of an artist to be a painter or sculptor. And the evangelist was saying this, when born from above, Christ dwells in our hearts by faith.

And as he lives out his life in us, we are able to walk as he walked. There is no other way whereby we may live the Christ life. The consequence of the sign is that the disciples witnessed his revealed glory, the power of God, and believed in their hearts.

The consequence of the sign is that the disciples witnessed Jesus's revealed glory, the power of God, and believed in their hearts. The reality is that without Christ, there's no life. Without Christ, there is no life.

Because Jesus is the source of life. The apostle John would end up recording eight different sign miracles performed by Jesus to show he truly was the Messiah. And each sign makes a claim. The first sign is when Jesus turns water into wine, chapter two.