What Precisely Must One Believe About Jesus?
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The story shows clear progress in what she believes about Jesus. First she
believes He is merely a typical Jewish man. Then she comes to believe He is
greater than her forefather Jacob. Soon she perceives He is a prophet. Finally she
comes to believe that He is the long awaited Messiah.
In the context of John 4 we find very clearly what she had to believe: that
Jesus is the source of everlasting life to all who simply believe in Him. Jesus said,
If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, Give Me a drink,`
you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water...whoever
drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall
give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life
(4:10, 14).
The water is not the life. The water is that which once drunk springs up into
everlasting life. Thus the water is the message that Jesus is the Messiah (v 26, I
who speak to you am He).
Now it is possible to believe that Jesus is God`s anointed one, and yet not
believe He is the Messiah in the sense Jesus means that here. For here once a
person believes that, they know they will never thirst again, that they are eternally
secure.
So in this passage the precise proposition that must be believed is this: Jesus
guarantees everlasting life to all who believe in Him for it.
John 6:47. After feeding 5,000 men plus many more women and children,
Jesus evangelized the crowd by referring to Himself as the bread of life. As in
John 4, He took a physical necessity, in this case bread, and discussed a spiritual
necessity, bread which imparts everlasting life.
In verses 35-40 He stresses the promise of eternal life to all who simply
believe in Him for it. He spoke of never thirsting after drinking the water of life (v
35), of never hungering after eating the bread of life (v 35), about never being cast