Introduction to the Gospel of John

The Fourth Gospel has stood the test of time as perhaps the greatest book in the world.  We should not be far wrong if we identified Luke’s Gospel as the most beautiful, but John’s Gospel as the most sublime, ever written.

Leon Morris reminds us that John’s Gospel has been compared to ‘a pool in which a child may wade and an elephant can swim.’

This Gospel was written by the disciple closest to our Lord.  In the case of Mark and Luke, these were written by those close to the apostolic circle.  In Matthew we have a record of the life of Jesus through the eyes of a devoted companion and follower.  But John was the one who leaned of Jesus’ breast.  He was the ‘beloved disciple’.  Here is the testimony of our Lord’s closest friend.

It is a wonderful combination of the lucid and the profound.  It has the clarity of a spring, but we cannot plumb its depths.

AUTHOR

It was written by the disciple whom Jesus loved, Jn 21:20, 24.  Throughout, the book shows signs of having been written by one who had witnessed the scenes described and who had been on intimate terms with the Lord.  The word ‘witness’, which occurs in Jn 1:7f, 19; 3:11,26,33; 5:31; 12:17; 21:24 etc, reflects this.

Why does the author not refer to himself directly in this Gospel?  As we move towards an answer, let us reflect that none of the Gospel writers mentions himself by name; nor does Luke in Acts.  As far as John is concerned, the answer must be that, having known the Master so closely, he wished to maintain the character of a witness, and by keeping himself in the background to magnify the Lord of whose divinity he is so convinced.

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE OTHER GOSPELS

As befits the last Gospel to be written, John largely avoids ground previously covered by the Synopists.  Apart from the events of the Passion Week and the resurrection, he touches the Synoptics only in the Feeding of the Five Thousand and the walking on the water.  He omits their coverage of the birth and infancy of Jesus; of his temptation; the Sermon on the Mount; the transfiguration; the institution of the Lord’s Supper.  John gives us few miracles, and even fewer parables.  On the other hand, John supplements them in various ways: he alone tells of the meeting with Nicodemus, and with the woman of Samaria.  He alone relates the raising of Lazarus, and our Lord’s appearance to Peter after his resurrection.  He alone records the public discourses of chapters 5,6,7,8 and 10, and the private discourses of chapters 13-16, together with the prayer of chapter 17.  He mentions two passovers not given by the other Gospels, Jn 2:23; 6:4, and may imply yet another, 5:1.  He pays special attention to the first year of our Lord’s ministry, Jn 1:19-4:45.  Whereas the other Gospels only allude to a significant ministry in Jerusalem, John adds considerable detail.  In terms of doctrine, John takes us further into the eternal purposes of God in the incarnation, Jn 1:1-18; cf. Col 1:14-20; Heb 1:1-3.  In doing so, he adopts the language of the intellectuals of the day (Word = ‘Logos’).

Critics have asserted that the teaching of Jesus as presented by the Synoptists is incompatible with that presented by John.  That there are differences is beyond doubt.  But then there are significant differences within the synoptic accounts, as well as between them and John.  And in the non-Markan portions of Matthew and Luke (‘Q’) there is a distinctly John-like passage, Mt 11:25-30; Lk 10:21-24.

Another factor may help to account for the differences between John and the Synoptics.  It may be (as Morris suggests in Jesus of Nazareth: Saviour and Lord) that Jesus employed two rather different approaches, in keeping with the rabbinic tradition.  One approach was teaching that was intended to be learned and memorised (recorded in the Synoptic tradition), and the other was teaching of a more informal kind (preserved by John).

STYLE

The style of this Gospel is a remarkable combination of simplicity and profundity.  It contains a number ‘key words’ which are used in a profound spiritual sense – ‘light’, ‘darkness’, ‘world’, ‘life’, ‘truth’, and so on.  It contains a number of explanatory notes on Jewish terms and customs, indicating that it was not written primarily for the Jews, but for the worldwide Church.  Gregory Nazianzen suggested that Matthew wrote for the Jews, Mark, for the Romans, Luke, for the Greeks, and John for the whole world.

‘As we look, the sense of simplicity gives way to an ever increasing consciousness of profundity.  Just as, often, gazing at the bright face of the full moon on a clear night, it seems almost within reach, until suddenly a sense of its distance enters the eye and it is seen sailing majestically through immensity.’  (B.B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings II)

HISTORICAL VALUE

C.S. Lewis once complained that the Fourth Gospel has been compared to ‘a spiritual romance’, ‘a poem not history’, to be read in a similar way to Nathan’s parable, the book of Jonah, Paradise Lost, ‘or, more exactly, Pilgrim’s Progress’.  Lewis mocks the comparison with Bunyan’s great work (‘a story which professes to be a dream and flaunts its allegorical nature by every single proper name is uses’) and concludes, ‘I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life.  I know what they are like.  I know that not one of them is like this.  Of this text there are only two possible views.  Either this is reportage…pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell.  Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without know predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative.  If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind.  The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned to read.’  (Christian Reflections, 152ff).

CHRISTOLOGY

‘It is an interesting fact that the Gospel of John, which proclaims the deity of Christ with particular force and clarity, has, in the last 150 years, been under sustained attack by academic theologians. Indeed, most scholars today dismiss that gospel as entirely non-historical. Although there are human reasonings and scholarly arguments behind that approach it is difficult to dismiss the suspicion that it is really part of an all-out Satanic attack on the deity of our Lord. It is hardly surprising that a book which is so precious, precisely because of its testimony to Christ, should be singled out for a particularly vicious attack.’ (McLeod, A Faith to Live By)