John 1:24,25 - Who can baptise?

This is meant to be a verse by verse study, but there are some very short verses in John, so the rule will be broken every now and then.

The priests and Levites had been sent by the Sanhedrin, and now we see that the Pharisees had been sent as well. So this was quite an investigation team. The Pharisees were the strictest religious group (one could say they were the Calvinists of their day, I do actually quite like Calvinists and am a fan of James White). So they would be the heavyweights, asking the deep probing questions if the priests and Levites failed to get anywhere, as indeed was the case.

As mentioned earlier, only priests were meant to baptise. So if John was no one special ( ie not the Messiah, not the Prophet, not Elijah) why was he doing so?

As an aside, there are some churches who will only allow ordained ministers to administer communion or baptise people. Now it is important that these things are done properly, and other churches have a too informal approach, but it does not seem to be essential that it is an ordained minister.

John 1:22,23 - Who is John the Baptist?

1:22

The priests and Levites had been sent to provide an answer on who John the Baptist was, or who he claimed to be. So that is why they are not happy with his denials to be the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet. If he wasn’t any of these, and yet was behaving in the way he did (seeking to have a major impact on people, and succeeding), who did he think he was?

The priests and Levites were fixated on who John was, what they should have focused on was who Jesus is.

1:23

John gives them an answer by quoting from Isaiah 40:3. He is the one calling in the wilderness to make straight path for the Lord. Matthew (Matt 3:3), Mark (1:3) and Luke (Luke 1:4) all make reference to the same verse.

After the Babylonian captivity the people (or at least some of them) had returned from captivity to Jerusalem. However, the history of Israel after that had not been particularly happy. They had problems at various times from various nations, and were now under Roman rule. The great promises in Isaiah, and elsewhere, had clearly not been anything like completely fulfilled.

Jesus is the one who brings fulfilment, and we need to repent in order to prepare the way for Him.

John 1:20,21 - Who are you?

1:20

John is emphatic that John the Baptist explicitly denied being the Messiah. We need to realise that in the period around the early part of the 1st century, there were several people who claimed to be the Messiah. As we saw in the notes on 1:19 John the Baptist was doing something most unusual, so the authorities wanted to know if he was claiming to be the Messiah. In fact that is what you would have expected someone as "odd" as John the Baptist to do.

1:21

So John has made it clear that he is not claiming to be the Messiah. So the next question of the priests and Levites is to ask if he is Elijah or the Prophet. Again the answer is no, but why these two people, and who are they anyway? Elijah is well known, especially for his battle with the Baals and Ahab and Jezebel. However, in the current context there are two key features of Elijah that matter. First he never died (2 Kings 2:11), then in Mal 4:5 it says that Elijah must come before the great and terrible day of The Lord. Then in Deut 18:15 Moses said that The Lord would raise up a prophet like him, and that the Jews must listen to him. Jesus is that Prophet and it is a great pity that the Jews did not listen to Him. One day they will.

By the way, Muslims claim that Deut 18:15 is pointing to Mohammed (erroneously!).

John the Baptist again refuses to make any such claim. Now this is a little surprising, for in Luke 1:17 the angel said John would go in the spirit of Elijah, and Jesus ( Matt 11:14, 17:10) identified John as Elijah. So why does John deny being Elijah here? There are various possible explanations. One is that he did not want to draw attention to himself. The other is that Jesus meant it in a different sense to what the Jews meant here.

John 1:19 - John the Baptist

Let's look a little at John the Baptist and consider the significance of what he was doing. We just take it for granted that he went around baptising people, but we don't really appreciate the significance of what he was doing. The Jews had a baptismal rite, but there were two key features of it. First, only priests were allowed to carry it out. Secondly, and most importantly, it was only for Gentiles who were converting to Judaism, to cleanse them of their Gentile uncleanness. So John was causing offence on two levels. He wasn't a priest, and he was saying that Jews needed to be baptised, they needed to be washed of their uncleanness. We see in all the gospels that a major problem the Jewish leaders had was that they would not admit that they needed to be cleansed of their sins. Yet the ordinary people did.

We can apply this to our generation. The elite who rule our society at all sorts of levels think they have no need of God. This does not mean that ordinary people will not respond.

Anyway, it was because of John's actions and his message that the Jewish leaders sent people to investigate who he was, did he have the right to do whatt he was doing?

John 1:18 - Father and Son

This verse is so theologically rich. No one has seen God except the one and only Son. If we wanted to know about someone who would we rather listen to, people who had all sorts of ideas about the person, or someone who had actually met him, who actually knew him. Jesus has seen God, has met Him, knows Him. So He is the most reliable source of information, of true knowledge about who God is. People spout all sorts of nonsense about who God is, but they know nothing.

Now when speaking about the trinity we should never take any one phrase in isolation, for we are talking about a concept that is way beyond our everyday experience. We are each one person, everyone we know is one person. God is both One and yet three persons. So the first part of this verse taken purely on its own would imply that Jesus is not God. So John is quick to correct any such misconception. The Son is Himself God.

Then he tells us that Jesus is in closest relationship with the Father. The relationship between the Father and the Son is not a mere theological relationship, it is a deep personal relationship. All human relationships derive ultimately from the relationships within the Godhead (Eph 3:15).

And it is this Jesus who makes the Father known to us. This is a recurrent theme in John. This is the Jesus who has seen the Father and is in close relationship with Him. We can trust and rely upon the words and testimony of Jesus.

John 1:17 - Grace and truth

This verse makes it clear that John is speaking of the grace of Christ replacing the grace of the Law. Paul, the writer of Hebrews, and John all talk about how the gospel supersedes the Law. Now we do need to understand that the Law itself was an instrument of grace. Moreover it still has relevance. The Law reflects the heart of God, its commands are good. Israel was blessed by having the Law. She would have been even more blessed if she had obeyed them a little more! But the Law increased sin (Rom 5:20). Not in the sense that it caused sin, but that it highlighted the reality of sin, the extent of our fallen nature.

The Law could not bring salvation. Jesus does bring salvation, grace and truth come through Him. So we see that John is teaching the same gospel with the same theology that Paul taught.

Note that this is the first place that the name of Jesus is used in the gospel. Up until now John has referred to Him as the Word. From now on it will be as Jesus. Note also the seamless transition. Jesus is the eternal Word who was with God from the beginning.

John 1:15,16 - Receiving grace

1:15

This verse parallels v6-8 in the chiasma. In the earlier part we are told that John the Baptist was not the light, but was a witness to the true light. In this verse we get the core of what John the Baptist taught.  John declared that Jesus was the Messiah. The use of the term “cried out” stresses the importance of what John said.

“He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.” Jesus was greater than John, so any notion of following John the Baptist was frankly silly. John the Baptist was a few months older than Jesus, but “was before me” could be a reference to the pre-existence of Jesus. There is no direct evidence of John knowing about the pre-existence of Jesus, but given that he knew that Jesus was infinitely greater than he, we cannot rule this out.

1:16

In verse 14 we read that Jesus was full of grace and truth. Out of this fulness we have all received grace. Some translations have “grace upon grace”, the literal translation is “grace in place of grace” (as NIV). Taking this latter translation it could mean that the grace received in Christ replaces the grace given under the Law. This is why the Message mentions Moses in its version of this verse. Grace was not a new concept, for the Law and the Prophets, rightly understood, was based upon grace.

The word grace will not be mentioned again in John, though the concept and the practical reality abounds.

It is out of the fulness of Christ that we receive grace. It is no use having a “bit of Jesus”, taking one aspect of Him and expecting to get any benefit from that. It is only when we commit ourselves wholeheartedly to Christ that we receive the fulness of His grace. Remember that in the synoptic gospels Jesus on a number of occasions says that we must love Him above all else.

John 1:14 - The Word became fesh

We now learn about how the Word came into the world. He did not come as an angel or some sort of super being, but He became flesh. He came as a man and dwelt with us. The incarnation is a mystery. How can God become man? This is never explained, but this should not be surprising. How can there be a God? How can anything exist? What is existence? All these are questions that in truth we cannot answer. If we make logic and understanding our god then we are done for. But the fact is that He did come to dwell amongst us as a man. Moreover, He did not stop being God, as the phrase “we have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son”, makes clear. Jesus is both God and Man, 100% God, 100% man.

The phrase “dwelt among us” is related to tent or tabernacle and is a reference to God dwelling with the Israelites as they made their way through the desert. So if you hear talk about God “tabernacling” among us, that is what they are on about!

The reference to glory could also be an allusion to the desert when God’s glory was visible in the cloud over the tent.

The phrase “grace and truth” is probably John’s rendering of “faithfulness and kindness”. The Greek word translated truth has reliability as its root meaning. The reliability of the gospel and of Jesus Himself is a point that John wants to emphasise.

The phrase monogenes, translated “one and only” emphasises the uniqueness of Jesus as the Son of God. Some, generally older, translations translate this as “only begotten”. “One and only” is better as it is the uniqueness that  is the point that John is making. It is not saying anything about God came to have a son, in fact that is a very bad question to ask. It is like asking “who created God”. God is eternal, and He is eternally Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father has eternally had a Son. Muslim’s will ask how God came to have a son, they imagine that we are saying He came to have a son when Mary conceived. This is not so (but some Christians help to promote this misunderstanding!). Jesus has eternally been the Son of God.

John 1:13 - born of God

This becoming children of God was very different from normal birth. This is very important in the immediate context, which we will look at in a moment or two, but also consider how much emphasis we put on human descent and human connections. People think because they were born in a certain nation or come from a particular background they are Christian (though this is far less true as our society abandons its Christian heritage). It is much stronger in other religions. Consider too the, sometimes violent, opposition that people can face if they convert from one religion to another.

So John emphasises that this becoming a child is very different. The literal translation of “not of natural descent” is actually “not of bloods”. In the ancient world the conception of a child was thought to be the result of a mixing of bloods. So John is saying the becoming a child of God is not a natural matter. Nor is it the result of human will. It is not the desire of two human parents, nor the result of a husband’s will.

No, the child is born of God. There is no further explanation of this here, but of course a little later there is the famous encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus. We often read sections of Scripture with little regard for how it all fits together. The gospel of John was written with a particular purpose, it was written as a single entity, it all fits together. Moreover, the Bible as a whole all fits together. For just as John had a single human author, the Bible has a single divine author.

John 1:12 - to those who believe

One immediate lesson from this verse is a warning on interpreting the Bible, and John in particular. He has just said that the world did not recognise Him and that Israel did not receive Him. Now he talks of those who did receive Him and believe in Him. So verses 10 and 11 do not imply that no one received Him. We will see one or two examples of this in John. A so-called literal understanding of the Bible can sometimes be an illiterate understanding.

Anyway, on to the main message of the verse. Verses 12 and 13 are at the heart of the chiastic structure, and are therefore the focal point of it.

Name stands for the person, for the character and nature of the person. So to believe in the Name of Jesus means to believe in who He is, who He claims to be.

To those who believed He gave the right to become children of God. Note that it is Jesus who gives the right to become children of God. This is another implicit indication of the divinity of Christ. John is full of these, places where something just does not make any sense at all unless Jesus actually is God. The word translated “right” by NIV can also be translated “power”, and some versions do so.

We are given the right to become children of God. The Greek here does mean child, not son, so is not a product of translators wishing to be gender neutral. John reserves the word son to speak specifically of Jesus as the Son of God. So when John talks about Jesus being the Son it has a special meaning. This is also an argument against the tendency of many modern translations to use gender neutral language where the original Greek does not. I am not against this in a dogmatic sense, but a pragmatic sense. There are many times where son, or man, or brothers quite clearly includes both male and female. But if the translation does change the Greek it should at least indicate that this has been done, otherwise it can result in us losing something of the significance of what the Bible actually says.

John 1:10,11 - A failure of recognition

1:10

This verse describes the tragedy of the situation. Jesus came into the world, the world that He had made, yet this world did not recognise Him. Sin blinds, and the greatest evidence of this is that we failed to recognise the Son of God when  He came.

There are so many amazing things in this verse. God, the creator of all things, came into the world. Consider the vast difference there is between us and God, just imagine the scale of that difference. We are mere men, but God is eternal, everything was created by Him.

We think we are so wise, yet when the creator of the world came to us we rejected Him.

1:11

The tragedy was compounded by the fact that the Israelites themselves did not recognise Him. For the rest of the world you might say the rest of the world had an excuse, Israel had no excuse. God had created the nation in the first place. He had rescued them from slavery, He had interacted with them, saved them, judged them, spoken to them, revealed Himself to them in many ways. Yet they did not recognise their God when He came to live among them. This is the true tragedy of the human condition.

The juxtaposition of the world and Israel is significant. Israel is in many ways a microcosm of the problems of man and the salvation of God. The Old Testament could fairly be described as a record of the sins of Israel. In Jeremiah in particular we see the utter depravity of the heart of Israel. Then we see the grace of God, the working of God and the promises of a new heart. We also see promises of salvation going out to other nations. The good news is that in Christ there is salvation for all, and it is in Christ that unity between Jews and Gentiles will be found (Eph 2:11-20). This is still true today. Israel will only find true peace when she turns to Christ, the Palestinians will only find peace and prosperity when they turn to Christ. And this is the only way for their to be peace and unity between Israel and Palestine.

John 1:8,9 - Jesus the light

1:8

Having stated that John the Baptist was a witness to the light, John makes it absolutely clear that he was not the light. Now John contains none of John’s preaching, nor his baptising, in particular the baptism of Jesus Himself. However, John was not “anti John the Baptist”. He makes several mentions of how John the Baptist pointed people to Jesus. This was John the Baptists proper purpose, the purpose he himself delighted in. What needed addressing was the tendency of some to wrongly venerate John the Baptist and to miss the point.

1:9

Some thought that John the Baptist gave light, but he only pointed to the light. The true light was coming into the world. With preachers, prophets and evangelists we need to make sure that we focus on who they are pointing to.

Jesus is the light for everyone. A common view is that all religions are basically the same, but such a view is evidence only that the person has not really thought it through. Ravi Zacharias has said “most people think all religions are superficially different, but essentially the same”, the truth is “religions are superficially similar, but fundamentally different”. And Jesus is the light for everyone. It is not arrogant of Christians to claim that everyone needs to believe in Jesus, it is simply stating the truth.

The “world” is a favourite word of John’s, the problem is that he uses it in a variety of ways, slipping easily from one meaning to another. The variety of meanings includes:

• the universe
• the earth
• the human population
• most people
• people opposed to God
• the human system opposed to God

So there can be an issue at times in determining in which sense he is using the word.

John 1:6,7 - A witness to the light

1:6

John’s gospel is somewhat different from the others in the way that it deals with John the Baptist, indeed he always refers to him simply as “John”, rather than “John the Baptist”, and does not mention any of John’s baptising. Why is this? It is possible that there were some who gave  wrong place to John the Baptist, so John wants to make it clear that John the Baptist’s purpose was to point to and prepare the way for Jesus. Moreover, John the Baptist himself knew that this was his purpose.

“There was a man sent from God “. Unlike the Word, John the Baptist was just a man, but he was sent by God. We can have an unhealthy habit of worshipping people rather than God. God may send someone as a preacher, evangelist, teacher, prophet or whatever, but they are just men. We should respect them and honour them, but respect them for what they are, which is servants of God, and every servant of God has the purpose of pointing people to Jesus. Indeed if someone, or even ourselves, start to point people to ourselves then we need to watch out.

1:7

This verse contains so many of the themes of John. He talks about those who testify to who Jesus is. The role of John the Baptist was to be a witness to testify to who Jesus is. Of course, we can apply this to ourselves as well. Our role is to bear witness to who Jesus is. Jesus is the light, we have already seen light mentioned in previous verses, and it is a word that will be repeated many times in John. And the goal of all this is that people will believe in Jesus.

John the Baptist came not draw attention to himself, but to draw attention to Jesus. Words for testify and witness are used far more often in John’s gospel than in the others. Similarly, believe is used numerous times.

That little word “all” is the centre of much debate between Calvinists and Arminians. Calvinism sees God as having an elect and Jesus came specifically to save and call the elect. His death on the cross was atonement specifically for the elect. So they see the word “all” here, and in similar contexts, as meaning “all the elect”. Arminians, on the other hand, see Christ as opening up the way for people to believe. Now one might say that the text obviously says all and means all, but then we see many instances in John of people not believing. So things are not so simple. Nor am I going to seek to resolve the Calvinist-Arminian controversy! I will say I tend towards the Calvinist side without being hardline on it.

Sermon on the reliability of the New Testament

A sermon on the reliability of the New Testament:
A Word to rely on, a Word to live by

If you want to know more about New Testament reliability and related issues here are some useful links, and where I got a lot of my information from.

James White

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXrX7_dRyV0

There are many more excellent talks and debates by him.

Dan Wallace

http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952769

http://www.apologetics315.com/2009/08/dan-wallace-mp3-audio-is-what-we-have.html

If you want to know about the formulation of the New Testament canon, then the following book is very good:

The Canon Revisted - Michael Kruger

John 1:5 - Light shining in the darkness

The previous verse has just said that the life in Jesus is the light of all people. Since we sinned, said we could manage without God, we have chosen to live in darkness. But Jesus has come into the world, He is the light of all people, so His light shines in the darkness. Remember that verse 1 is a parallel on Genesis 1:1. In the creation we read that God said let there be light (Gen 1:3).  And the darkness has not “understood” or “overcome” the light. The Greek word can be translated either way, and both contain truth.

The darkness does not understand who Jesus is. Listen to non-believers speak about Jesus and it will range from being a misunderstanding to  complete rubbish. For instance, in the recent debates on so-called same-sex marriage some supporters of the idea have claimed Jesus on their side. Or they just see Him as a “good man” (though they rarely agree with much of what He actually said!).

But it is also true that the darkness has not overcome it. We see in John’s gospel the battle between light and darkness. Later John lived through times of great persecution, and the church has gone through many such times. These days Christians in the Middle East are experiencing terrible suffering. Yet these attempts to crush Christ have never worked, and they never will.

John 1:4 - Life

Life is one of the repeated themes of John. We also find the link between light and life in Psalm 36:9:

For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light we see light.

Life comes from Christ. As soon as we try and live without God we cut ourselves off from the source of life. It is like a laptop computer that refuses to plug into the mains. It will seem to function as  normal for a while, but then it will start to lose power and eventually die. So it is with the human race.

The life of Christ is light for all people. Look at society and consider what is still good. It all emanates from God. We see this most clearly in the West where our legal and social systems had Christian roots. Of course this wasn’t perfect, but there was a Christian heritage in there. These foundations have helped to make our societies stable. Yet now we are abandoning these foundations as quickly as we can, not just saying that we don’t need them, but positively rejecting anything linked to Christianity. Indeed it is almost a crime (and sometimes actually is a crime) to hold to Biblical teaching on certain matters, such as homosexuality.

The good news is that if we repent and return to Christ then we will rediscover the source of life and the light in our life will return. And there is no darkness that it cannot banish, but that is straying into the next verse.

John 1:3 - Creator

This verse continues with the essential nature of the Word.  We have already learnt that He is eternal, is God and has always been in relationship with God. Now we learn of His relationship to the universe, and that is that He is the creator of absolutely everything. Paul says the same sorts of things in Colossians 1:15-17, as does Hebrews 1:2.

Now while John is using the term Word, or Logos, here any ideas that somehow distinguish between the Word and Jesus are mistaken. Later we will read that the Word became flesh (v14), so all these attributes apply to Christ Jesus (as Col 1:15-17 and Heb 1:2 make clear). It is significant that the term Logos is not used of Jesus beyond the prologue. The Word and Jesus are one and the same.

Without Him nothing was made that has been made. This makes it clear that Jesus is not a created being as some cults claim.

When we look at Jesus we need to remember that we are looking at the One through whom all things were created.

John 1:2 - He was with God

He was with God in the beginning. This short verse contains many truths. One is that the Word is a person. Secondly He was with God in the beginning. So He is in relationship with God, He is God, but has His own personhood. Ie He is part of the trinity.

People sometimes think that God created man so that He could have some company. This is simply not true. In the trinity there is one God but three persons. The three persons are in complete unity but are also distinct, and there was relationship between them, there was love between them. God did not create man so that He could love someone, rather we are a product of the love that eternally exists within the Godhead.

Unitarian religions (eg Islam, and unitarian sects of Christianity) have an enormous problem here. For where, under their understanding, does love come from?

The verse also highlights the eternal nature of Christ, as will be done again on several occasions in John. People sometimes give the idea that God chose Jesus to be the Christ, ie that Jesus was just a man and then God chose Him to be the Messiah. Such idle notions have no grounding in Scripture whatsoever.

John 1:1 - In the beginning

There are obvious parallels between this verse and the opening of Genesis, (Gen 1:1). “In the beginning was the Word”, this emphasises the eternal nature of Jesus. He is not a created being. We will look at the term logos in a moment or two, but let’s first consider other parts of the verse.

“the Word was with God” can mean the Word was faced towards God, implying an intimate relationship with God. This is the point made by the end of the prologue (1:18, part A’ in the chiasma).

“and the Word was God”. Now the Greek here is kai theos en ho logos. The important point is that there is no definite article before theos (God).  John is not saying the Word is the God, ie this is not a unitarian statement. Rather he is saying that the nature of the Word is God, ie if you could carry out a chemical test for “godness” on the Word you would get the result 100% God. The trinity is absolutely vital. Otherwise ask yourself where does love come from? Where does relationship come from? The threeness of God is vital. Relationship and love existed before the creation of the world.

Now let’s focus on Word. Why does John use this term? The key aspect of the Word, or logos, is reason or logic. There is meaning to the world. It is fascinating that the likes of Dawkins seem to think it is a wonderful thing that the universe, from their perspective, is meaningless and is a product of blind chance. Surprising then that they are so keen on boasting of the supposed rationality of their approach. Where does this rationality come from in this meaningless and random universe?

The Bible, on the other hand, states that the universe, and you and me, were created out of reason and with a purpose.

John 1:1-18 - It's Chiasmic!

We will do a verse by verse study of the chapter, but before doing that it worth looking at the overall structure of the prologue. For it has a chiasmic structure (Kruse). This structure is often used in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. The general structure is of the form:

A

B

C

D

C’

B’

A’

The A and A’ etc correspond to each other, and the central idea is the middle of the chiasm, ie D in the example structure above (D may also have a parallel, D’). So the general idea is that:

• Ideas are expressed in reverse
• The central idea is the middle one.

There is an interesting web site on this here. So how does this apply to 1:1-18? Well Kruse identifies the structure as:

A 1:1-5

B 1:6-8

C 1:9-11

D 1:12,13

C’ 1:14

B’’ 1:15

A’ 1:16-18

So how does the structure work? Well, A speaks of the Word being in intimate relationship with God, and A’ tells of the Word being in close relationship with the Father. Both B and B’ tell of John the Baptist bearing witness to the Lord. C speaks of the light coming into the world and C’ of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us. The centre of all this is D where it says that those who believed in Jesus received the right to become children of God, to be born of God. Remember this is John’s primary purpose in writing his gospel 20:31. The outer elements of the chiasma build up to this. Perhaps most important is the outer one, the relationship between the Son and the Father. Part of the message of John is that we can have the same relationship with the Father and the Son. Eg in 17:22 Jesus prays that we may be one as they are one. In John 20:17 Jesus says “my Father and your Father”. 14:17 speaks of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Looking at the Father-Son relationship in terms of it demonstrating the divinity of Jesus and in trinitarian terms is important, but if that is all we do we are missing the key point that John is making. The relationship between the Father and the Son is a model of the relationship we should look to have with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, an intimate relationship. Item C of the chiasma is concerned with the Word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us, emphasising the closeness of the relationship. We do not worship a far away God, but one who wants to have a relationship with us. The B parts of the chiasma are emphasising what John the Baptist was really about. Remember the Ephesian dozen (Acts 19) who had “only received John’s baptism”. It seems as though there may have been some who misunderstood the importance of John the Baptist, so John is emphasising that his ministry was all about pointing towards Jesus.

John - Introduction (2)

Purpose and Structure

John helpfully tells us his primary purpose in 20:31

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.

There is some debate over whether the gospel was intended primarily as evangelistic or to build-up existing Christians. There are several examples in the gospel of people coming to believe in Jesus. At the same time there are sections, particularly from chapter 13 onwards, that seem primarily aimed at existing Christians. So I think the answer to the question is both.

The general structure of the gospel is generally agreed to be as follows:

• Prologue (1:1-18)
• Jesus’ work in the world (1:19-12:50)
• Jesus’ return to the Father (13:1-20:31)
• Epilogue (21:1-25)

Content and Comparison with the other gospels

John is distinct from the other three gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke, while having their own distinctive emphases, share a lot of common material and are called the synoptic gospels. John is very different. Most of the action in the synoptics take place in Galilee with six months in the south in Judea. Conversely, most of John is set in Judea. There are no parables nor casting out of demons in John. Key events in the synoptics, such as the transfiguration, the Last Supper, Jesus’ baptism, the temptations and details of His birth are omitted from John. Why is this? Well as we saw earlier John was probably written about 90 AD, so these other gospels were known and there was no point repeating them. John’s gospel is much more reflective and adds a new dimension.  Some of the key elements of the gospel are:

• the humanity and divinity of Jesus
• the intimate teaching of Jesus to His disciples and His prayer for them
• the gospel is very trinitarian, with a major emphasis on the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
• the discourses between Jesus and various people focuses on who Jesus is
• there is far more on the Holy Spirit and the believer in John than there is in the synoptics.

John is concerned with our relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Jewish and Greek Characteristics

John was communicating to a Greek world as well as a Hebrew one. It is believed that he was based in Ephesus (in modern day Western Turkey). This has some bearing on the nature of John’s gospel. One of these is the view of time. One aspect of Hebrew thought had a linear view of time, ie past, present and future. So they saw things as travelling towards a conclusion. We see this throughout the Bible with the Day of the Lord being the destination and everything working and leading towards this day. At the same time we should also be aware of the idea of “event time”, ie focusing on an event and the nature of the event, rather than a nice neat chronology. This view is still used in John. However, he also uses the Greek view, which was concerned with life above and below, or heaven and earth. One of the prominent features of John is Jesus being the one who was sent from heaven, and then later on His having to return to heaven so that the Holy Spirit could be sent from heaven to earth.

At the same time there are significant Jewish characteristics to John’s gospel. Israel Abrahams (an excellent Jewish name!), Reader in Rabbinics at Cambridge , said that John’s gospel was the most Jewish of the gospels (Kruse). He said this because of the numerous allusions to the Old Testament, knowledge of the Jewish festivals and their symbolism, and Jesus’ use of rabbinic arguments in his debates with the Jews.

John often refers to “the Jews”. The term is used in a variety of ways in John. The majority of negative references are to the Jewish leadership, and there are no grounds whatsoever for any anti-semitic inferences.