Glory Revealed: The Early Ministry
The First Disciples, the First Sign, the Ruler by Night, and the Woman at the Well
1. "Come and See": The First Disciples
The forerunner had one more thing to do: point. Standing with two of his own disciples, John saw Jesus walk by and said again, "Behold the Lamb of God!" (John 1:36). And the two left their teacher to follow the One he named. Jesus turned and asked the first question of His ministry: "What do you seek?" When they asked where He was staying, He answered with the invitation that would become the whole pattern of discipleship: "Come and see" (John 1:39).
It spread the way good news always spreads — one mouth at a time. Andrew went first to his own brother: "We have found the Messiah" (John 1:41), and brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and gave him a new name, Cephas, a stone (John 1:42). Philip found Nathanael: "We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote" (John 1:45). But Nathanael had a prejudice ready: "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" (John 1:46). Notice Philip's reply. He did not argue the point; he simply said, "Come and see." The cure for honest doubt is not a better argument but a closer look at Christ. When Jesus told Nathanael He had seen him under the fig tree before Philip ever called him, the skeptic became a worshiper: "Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" (John 1:49). And Jesus promised more: "You shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man" (John 1:51) — Jacob's ladder (Genesis 28:12) made flesh. Jesus Himself is the stair between earth and heaven; in the God-Man, the two are joined.
2. The First Sign: Water Into Wine
The early ministry opens not with a sermon but with a sign, and not in a temple but at a wedding. At Cana the wine ran out — a small village shame — and Mary brought the need to her Son. "Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come" (John 2:4); yet she told the servants the wisest words any creature can say of Him: "Whatever He says to you, do it" (John 2:5). Six stone waterpots stood ready for ceremonial washing; He had them filled to the brim, and what was drawn out was wine — and the best wine, served last, against all custom (John 2:9–10).
John does not call it a miracle; he calls it a sign: "This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him" (John 2:11). That is the key to the whole Gospel. A sign is not a wonder for its own sake; it is a signpost, pointing past itself to the glory of the One who does it and calling for faith — the very purpose John states at the end: "these are written that you may believe" (John 20:31).
From the wedding He went up to Jerusalem and drove the traders from the temple: "Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!" (John 2:16). When they demanded a sign for His authority, He answered, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" — and John explains, "He was speaking of the temple of His body" (John 2:19–21). Already, at the start, the resurrection is in view.
3. The Ruler Who Came by Night
Then came a man as respectable as the Samaritan woman would be despised. Nicodemus was a Pharisee and "a ruler of the Jews" (John 3:1), and he came "by night" (John 3:2) — cautious, hedging, half in the dark. Jesus cut past his flattery to his need: "unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). The word means born from above. Nicodemus heard it woodenly — how can a grown man re-enter the womb? (John 3:4) — and Jesus answered that there are two births and two realms: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). The new birth is not reform of the old life; it is the gift of a life the old man does not possess.
No child ever arranged its own birth. It did not choose to be conceived, could not labor itself into the world, contributed nothing but the need to be born. So it is with the new birth: it is God's gift, worked by His Spirit, and no one can manufacture it by sheer effort or moral reform. Yet Scripture also calls us to respond to that gift: "as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name" (John 1:12). The new birth is God's sovereign work, received the moment genuine faith reaches out and takes hold of Christ — not a passive experience imposed on the unwilling, but new life given to the one who believes. That is why Jesus turned to the wind. "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8). You cannot command the wind, harness it, or watch it; you can only feel that it has come and see what it has moved. The Spirit is as sovereign and as real, and as little at our disposal.
Then Jesus pointed Nicodemus to a bronze serpent on a pole in the wilderness, where dying Israelites looked and lived (Numbers 21:9): "so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:14–15). The cross is already lifted on the horizon. And out of that comes the verse the whole Bible seems to press toward: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Nicodemus had come in the dark; but "he who does the truth comes to the light" (John 3:21), and in time this night-comer would step into the day (John 19:39).
4. The Woman at the Well
If Nicodemus shows the gospel reaching the religious insider, the next chapter shows it reaching the outsider no rabbi would have touched. Jesus "needed to go through Samaria" (John 4:4) — a road most Jews avoided and a people they despised. Wearied from the journey, He sat by Jacob's well at the sixth hour (John 4:6). Hold that: the One who made the fountains of the deep sat down thirsty by a well. As God He is the living water; as man He was too tired to draw it.
She came at noon, in the heat, alone — not in the cool morning with the other women, for she had a history that made their company unbearable. To her, at the worst hour of her day, the Savior said, "Give Me a drink" (John 4:7), and in one request crossed every wall at once — Jew to Samaritan, man to woman, the holy to the sinful. Then He offered her "living water," promising that whoever drank of it "will never thirst," for it would become "a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14). When she reached for it, He gently exposed the five husbands and the man who was not her husband (John 4:18) — not to shame her, but because the water cannot fill a life still pretending it is not empty.
She tried to hide behind an old dispute — this mountain or Jerusalem? — and He lifted worship clean off the map: "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24). Then, to this woman, He said what He had told almost no one plainly: "I who speak to you am He" (John 4:26). She left her waterpot and ran to the town she had been avoiding; and while she was gone, Jesus lifted His disciples' eyes from the food they fetched to the crowd already streaming out of the village: "Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest" (John 4:35). Many Samaritans believed, saying at last, "this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world" (John 4:42).
5. Night-Comer and Noon-Comer
Set the two side by side, for John surely meant us to. Nicodemus: a man, a Jew, a ruler, religious, respectable, who came by night. The woman: a Samaritan, an outcast, a sinner, who met Him at noon. They could not be further apart — and they needed the very same thing. The ruler must be born from above; the outcast must drink the living water; and neither can produce it for himself. So the early ministry unveils His glory to insider and outsider alike (John 2:11), and the signs are written still for one reason: "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (John 20:31).