To Encourage You

John 21:1 “After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way.”

It is interesting how every time we read about Jesus encountering people after the resurrection His identity was apparently hidden from them at first.  This was true when Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and when He appeared to a gathering of the disciples here in John 21.  Even though He stood before them in person, they either didn’t recognize Him, they doubted, or they thought they saw a spirit; that sort of thing.  It is also interesting that it says repeatedly something to this effect “Jesus revealed himself to them.”  Here was playing out what Jesus had said in prayer in Luke 10:22: “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”  You see, lots of people claim to know God, but it is only the ones to whom Jesus reveals God that God can be known.  It’s the only way.  He is the only Way. No one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). 

So how does He do this?  What’s His method?  Well, in every one of the instances of the revelation of Jesus to men and women after the resurrection, their eyes were opened only after they heard Him speak.  In John 21 it says “he revealed himself in this way.”  In that appearance several of the disciples had gone fishing – the very same disciples to whom Jesus had appeared earlier.  Yet, although they saw Jesus on shore, “the disciples did not know that it was Jesus” (John 21:4).  We are then told that Jesus spoke to them and told them to put their net down on the other side of the boat, for we are told that they had been fishing all night and had caught nothing.  When they did as Jesus said, they caught so many fish that they were not able to haul their net in.  At this Peter said, “It is the Lord.”

Here, and everywhere else that Jesus revealed Himself to His followers after the resurrection, it was His words, and their response to His words, which were the way in which Jesus revealed Himself to them.  And that’s the same way He reveals Himself to men and women today.  Though we can’t see Him with our eyes, He reveals Himself to us in His Word.  The Bible says that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17).  Faith, believing on this One who is unseen, the One Who has yet to be revealed to our physical eyes, comes to us only by hearing the words of Christ. 

The Word of Christ, the gospel, is what Jesus commanded that we preach to every creature.  It’s the way He has chosen to reveal Himself to us.  It’s the only way we can know who He really is in all His resurrection majesty and glory.  It’s the way any person comes to know God initially, and it’s the only way believers that have met Him continue to have His glory revealed to them. We must listen to His words.  And it doesn’t matter if it’s the red letters in the New Testament, or the words He spoke through His apostles and prophets everywhere else in the Old and New Testaments. It’s all His Word and it’s all a revelation of Christ to us.

So, do you want to see Jesus? Do you want to have your eyes opened to a revelation of His glory?  In Titus 1 Paul talks about eternal life “which God, who never lies, promised before the ages beganand at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior.”  So, here we are told again that Jesus, Who is The Life (John 14:6), has been manifested in His Word through preaching, and preaching that Paul had been commanded by God to do.  It’s also preaching the Word, simply telling others what God says in His Word, that has been commanded of each and every one of us that know Him (Mark 16:15).  And wonder of wonders, it’s that very thing that God has chosen to use to reveal Himself to others who have yet to recognize Him. 

What a privilege to be a part of this. What a glory and blessing to read His Word and have the very Son of God revealed to us.  So, do you want to see Him?  He will reveal Himself by way of His Word, if we will but pick it up, read it, and believe what it says.