The Gospel of John

”Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
John 8:31-32 (KJV)

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Key themes in John's gospel are:

• Jesus' closeness with his Father
• The importance of belief in Jesus
• Jesus as the perfect manifestation of God
• The importance of belonging to God, not the world

John uses siimple words with deep meanings. Words like truth, life, love, bread, word, light. See the pdf for more examples.

John tells us why he wrote his gospel in 20v18: that we might come to believe in Jesus as the one God has sent to be His representative and our Saviour. This is very important. John persistently emphasises Jesus as the one God has sent. He is the door, the way, the bread, the vine, the shepherd. He is everything we need. John has a whole set of these 'I am...' expressions which Jesus uses to express his mission and his significance.

John also emphasises the unity - the supreme closeness - between Jesus and his father. So perfectly did Jesus think, speak and do like his Father that he could say 'He that has seen me has seen the Father', or 'I and the Father are one'. This emphasis on God's unique and perfect revelation of Himself through His son is reason alone John's gospel.

If John's gospel is indeed written by Jesus' closest disciple, the apostle John, then it will present (as it surely does) an incredibly intimate view of the Lord Jesus. It contains many sayings and disourses recorded nowhere else, and it does so with a unique flavour and emphasis. According to tradition this John was also a relative of the High Priest.

Another valuable feature of John's gospel is the help it gives us with the chronology of Jesus' ministry. The gospel refers to four different Passovers, and also other Jewish feasts which Jesus attended, and this helps us put together a useful timeline of Jesus' life.

Although about essentially the same subject, John's gospel is very different from the other three. John presents things from a divine rather than a human perspective, and much of the dialogue John records has no counterpart in the other gospels.

It does have a counterpart in other New Testament books, however. There are very close similarities between the gospel of John and the epistles of John, and the classic explanation of this has always been that it is because they were written by the same author, John, the disciple Jesus loved. The book of Revelation is by the same John, and though by no means as obvious, there are some points of connection with John's gospel there also.

A key division in John's gospel comes at the end of chapter 12. Up to that point Jesus has been carrying out his public ministry - preaching to as many as would listen amongst the Jews and giving them the opportunity to confront him and make a decision about whether to believe in him or not. The word 'believe' is absolutely key in these chapters, and John keeps presenting us with little progress reports about who believes and who does not (and what the consequences are). In chapter 13 onwards Jesus' focus is on his disciples - those who have made the decision to believe on him. Almost all of these chapters 13-17 is unique to John and expresses Jesus' love and wishes for his followers. So great a love, in fact, that he lays down his life for them and is then raised from the dead, as recorded in chapters 18-21.

John loves opposites. He divides the world into two using sets of what literary types refer to as 'binary oppositions' (we might just say 'opposites' for short). There is light and dark, day and night. There is truth and there are lies. We can be of God, or of the world; we can be 'from above' or 'from beneath'. There is no middle ground, in other words, no possibility of having a foot in both camps. We have to choose one way or the other, and not dither about in between. The gospel of John gives us tools to help us see the issues in clear focus and to make the right choice.

In a way, John's gospel is a course in spiritual thinking. Jesus repeatedly talks to people about things, and they think he is talking about one thing, when really he is talking about something on quite a different plane. He talks of bread and they think he is talking of food, whereas he is talking of his body. He talks of water, but he is speaking of living, spiritual water which has the power to refresh the spirit and give life. His teachings are an exercise for us to stop thinking of things in human and mundane terms, but to start to see the bigger realities which are far more important.

Not only so, but Jesus deliberately chose to say provocative things which would challenge his listeners and had the potential to offend them. He breaks taboos, and violates the norms of society in order to get through to people and make them see how his message transcends all other messages and all other values that we might happen to have.