In today's Gospel passage, the writer John provides the key points of Jesus' teachings before he starts on the account of Jesus' passion and resurrection. It contains a summary of his mission and a call to faith.

Firstly, the call to faith is not merely an attachment to the person of Jesus. It reaches beyond him, for the goal is the Father who reveals Himself in Jesus. Secondly, Jesus himself carries out his mission always in awareness that he represents his Father, and therefore, to contemplate Jesus in faith is to recognise him as the one who reveals the Father. Thirdly, to believe in Jesus is to be liberated from darkness, that is, from the sphere of unbelief, sin and separation from God. Fourthly, to reject Jesus and his message is to condemn oneself and to become alienated from God. Jesus only saves and it is man alone who condemns or judges himself.

The teachings show that Jesus owes his whole mission and message to the Father. If in the past, the words of God, as communicated by Moses to the people, was the means by which God revealed Himself, through Jesus, God's very words are spoken to the people. Those who accept him come to share in the life of Jesus and his Father. If this is who Jesus is and what Jesus does, it also reveals who God is, and what God does since Jesus by word and action reveals the Father. To know Jesus is to know Father at the very heart of their being.