The Gospel According To JohnSýnishorn

Preparation for Ministry: John 1:19-2:12

The section on Jesus’ preparation for ministry begins with the ministry of John the Baptist in John 1:19-36. In this passage, John stressed that John the Baptist was an important witness to the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, and that Jesus would be God’s sacrificial lamb that would take away the sin of the world.

Following this, John reported the calling of Jesus’ first disciples in John 1:37-51. As with the account of John the Baptist, the emphasis in this section is on Jesus’ identity. His disciples refer to him as “Rabbi,” which means teacher, in verse 38; “Messiah,” which means Christ, in verse 41; “the one Moses wrote about,” which was a reference to the prophet Moses had foretold, in verse 45; and “the Son of God” and its parallel term “the King of Israel,” in verse 49. Finally, in verse 51 Jesus identified himself as the “Son of Man” who had been sent to provide access to God’s presence. 

The last part of Jesus’ preparation for ministry was his first miracle, which John recorded in John 2:1-12. This was the occasion when Jesus turned water into wine. But the focus wasn’t on the miracle itself. Consider what John wrote in John 2:11:

This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.

One of the main points John made was that this miracle was a sign that revealed Jesus’ glory, and that caused his disciples to trust him.

John is unique among the Gospels in consistently calling Jesus’ miracles “semeion”—“signs” as it is usually translated. The miracles were not intended to draw attention to themselves, but to point beyond themselves to Jesus. Particularly they were intended to identify Jesus as both “the Christ” and “the Son of God,” in line with the purpose of the book that John summarized in John 20:30-31.