Memory Verse Day 8: John’s Surprising Theme

Finally we finish the sentence!  John 1:11-13 reads, of course, He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

John goes to a lot of trouble to show that Salvation is the work of God.  Even when telling us about people who received Jesus, he talks about them passively, while focusing on what God did.

Of course most of us are familiar with John 3, which also uses the birth imagery – we must be born again, born of the Spirit.  In John 6 Jesus talks about God drawing people to the Son.  In John 8 there’s the contrast between the children of Abraham and the children of God.  In John 10 believers are sheep, given to the Son by the Father.  In John 15 Jesus tells His disciples that they did not choose Him, but He chose them.  Again in John 17 believers are given to the Son.

It’s a constant theme.  Along with the repetition that these are believers, people who received the Son, is the repetition that it was the work of God.

Something supernatural happens through faith in Jesus.  Though it was known by God throughout eternity, it’s something that happens to us in time.  We are born of God – children of God – by the will and power of God.  And it’s in God – the Father, Son, and Spirit – that we have confidence.