July 22, 2006
Newsletter Archives

Most of us know that there are four records of the life of the Lord Jesus. We call them the four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There is only one Gospel, but they are four aspects of the life of the Lord Jesus. Just as different biographers of a prominent public figure, might write about him in his official office, or as a family man, or about his former career, etc. so the four biographers of the Lord Jesus have written of Him from various viewpoints.
In the record of the apostle John, there is no mention of the word repentance at all. John is so focused on the simplicity of the Gospel that he does not want the reader to have any self-occupation. He wants his readers to be occupied with the Lord Jesus alone. Thus John speaks of believing over eighty times of the approximately 120 times it is used in the four Gospels. He underscores the fact that trusting alone is enough to take a person to Heaven.
Interestingly, John records a statement of the Lord Jesus on the cross that the other three writers do not tell us. In John 19:30, he records, “when Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost.” The apostle John tells us that the Lord Jesus finished the work of paying the price for sin.
When the Lord Jesus said, “It is finished,” He left us only one thing to do: believe Him. And in John 6:47, the Lord Jesus tells us that, saying “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.”
The message is simple. The Lord Jesus made payment for sin. He said it was finished. He left nothing for us to do—nothing that is, but to trust Him.

Russ Nesbit