John Commentary

John wrote his Gospel to inspire faith. John knew Jesus intimately, and John’s Gospel provides an intimate portrait of the Lord. John referred to himself as “the disciple Jesus loved.” His Gospel has become the “beloved Gospel” of the church. Here we meet Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, Lazarus, and doubting Thomas. John records for us many of Jesus’ most memorable sayings, longest sermons, and most profound miracles. Here we meet God face to face.

Setting

A small community of Christians lived in ancient Ephesus during the late first century AD. They had learned the remarkable news about Jesus and accounts of his life from the apostle Paul. Eventually, the apostle John moved to Ephesus and settled there, bringing his own recollections of Jesus’ life and ministry. In his later years, John wrote these recollections down, providing his followers—and us—with the fourth Gospel.

John’s desire above all was for his followers to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (John 20:31). He realized that they had not had the privilege of seeing Jesus’ many signs and miracles as he had (John 20:29). John’s authority and deep experience with Jesus ring out from every story he told. As an eyewitness to Jesus’ life (John 19:35), John had heard, seen, and touched the Word of life (see 1 Jn 1:1-4) and was a valuable source of many stories that are unique to his Gospel.

As the Christians of Ephesus told their fellow citizens about Jesus, they quickly found themselves debating about Jesus with rabbis in the local synagogues. Was Jesus truly the Son of God? How could he be the Messiah? Can Christians legitimately claim to be “children of Abraham”? Could anyone prove that Jesus’ claim of being sent from God was true? Guided by the Holy Spirit in his teaching and writing, John brilliantly led his Christian readers through these debates.

Tensions grew. As small churches grew up alongside synagogues, more Jews converted. Opposition to the Christian believers was inevitable. But John stood by the church during terrible persecution and conflict. When it seemed that the fledgling church’s struggle with the prestigious synagogue community would overwhelm them, John courageously gave witness to the ministry of Jesus Christ. When false teachers later brought internal controversy and conflict to the church, John again gave the community strength. Writing letters to encourage and exhort (see 1, 2, and 3 John), John became the heroic pastor–theologian of the churches in Asia Minor.

John’s writing is as beloved today as it was in the earliest years of the church. Few books of the Bible have influenced Christian life and thought like John’s profound and dynamic Gospel. By combining intimacy of expression with penetrating insight, John provides a deeply satisfying portrait of Christ.

Summary

John divided his Gospel into two main sections, which comprise chs 1–12 and chs 13–21. The first section, which is often called “The Book of Signs,” tells about Jesus’ public ministry of revealing himself to the Jewish world. The second section, often called “The Book of Glory,” records Jesus’ private words to his disciples and tells of his death and resurrection.

Chapters 1–12. The Gospel prologue (1:1-18) artfully summarizes the entrance of God’s Word into the world. Jesus was baptized and called his earliest followers (1:19-51). Then a series of remarkable events (chs 2–4) highlights Jesus’ revelation of himself to the Jews. At a wedding in Cana, Jesus turned water into wine. In Jerusalem, he used a whip to drive corruption and money-dealing out of the Temple. He debated the meaning of spiritual rebirth with a rabbi named Nicodemus. At a well in Samaria, he met a woman with a checkered marital history and offered her “living water,” which no well can ever provide. In each of these events, Jesus unveiled his identity.

In the following section (chs 5–10), Jesus appears at a number of Jewish festivals, using ancient Old Testament symbols and practices to reveal himself to God’s people. On the Sabbath, Jesus worked by healing a lame man. On Passover, Jesus provided bread for five thousand. In the symbolic light of the Festival of Shelters, Jesus healed a blind man, reinforcing his own identity as the light of the world. John’s clear message is that Jesus came to fulfill what Judaism had promised since Old Testament times.

Then Jesus began to prepare for his death and resurrection. John describes Jesus’ arrival in Bethany, a town just east of Jerusalem (ch 11). His friend Lazarus had died, and Jesus raised him to life. Following this remarkable event, Jesus made his final public appeal to the world to believe in him and his mission (ch 12).

Chapters 13–21. John turns to Jesus’ death and resurrection, reminding readers that the cross is not a sign of despair but a picture of glory. Jesus was returning to the Father and needed to prepare his disciples for his departure. At his final Passover meal, Jesus disclosed to his disciples the things nearest to his heart (chs 13–17). He told them candidly about his death and departure to the Father. He reassured them that he would not abandon them, but that he would return and turn their sorrow into joy. He promised them the gift of the Holy Spirit. Finally, Jesus prayed for them.

Following this Passover meal, Jesus led his followers east of the city and across a valley to an olive grove called Gethsemane (ch 18). Judas, who had agreed to betray Jesus, soon appeared with a large contingent of Roman soldiers and Temple guards. Following his arrest, Jesus stood before the Jewish high council to be interrogated, first by Annas and then by Caiaphas, the reigning high priest. By morning, the Jewish leaders took Jesus to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who asked probing questions about Jesus’ identity. Pilate, coaxed by the Jewish leaders, decided to have Jesus crucified (ch 19).

The climax of John’s Gospel is Jesus’ resurrection from the dead (ch 20). This event begins a series of dramatic accounts in which Jesus appeared to his followers and encouraged them. He gave them the Holy Spirit and commissioned them to represent him to the world. Jesus then gave his disciples their marching orders (ch 21). He reminded them of his power (21:1-14); reinstated Peter, who had denied him (21:15-17); and instructed Peter to follow him in his mission (21:18-19).

Author and Date

As with the other Gospels, John provides no explicit evidence as to its author, although the enigmatic figure of the “beloved disciple” provides clear clues (see 13:23; 19:26-27; 20:2-10; 21:7, 20-24). The Gospel of John must be connected with this person, for he is identified as the eyewitness source of this record of Jesus’ life (19:35; 21:20-24).

Who was this beloved disciple? Beginning in AD 125, leaders in the early church wrote that he was the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, who was living in Ephesus when he wrote this Gospel (see, e.g., Eusebius, Church History 3.23). John was one of the Twelve and, along with James (his brother) and Peter, was part of an inner circle around Jesus (see e.g., Matt 26:36-37; Mark 5:37; 9:2). The Gospel of John reflects this close perspective. Most scholars believe that John completed writing his Gospel by around AD 90.

Recpients

John most likely wrote his Gospel for Jewish Christians living in Ephesus, Asia Minor, and the broader Mediterranean world. These believers were caught between Jewish and Greek cultures, and their grasp of Judaism may have been slipping.

While John’s knowledge of Palestine and Judaism is reflected throughout his Gospel, he assumed that his audience was unfamiliar with some particulars of Jesus’ world. For example, he explained that rabbi is a Hebrew word meaning “teacher” (1:38), and he gave an alternate name for the Sea of Galilee (6:1). At the same time, John assumed that his readers were familiar with Jewish traditions, concepts, and festivals. They were probably also familiar with the basic story presented in Mark’s Gospel. For example, John refers to John the Baptist’s imprisonment (3:24) without ever telling the complete story.

Meaning and Message

Revelation and Redemption. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it” (1:5). The light of God has inhabited the world: Christ reveals the Father (14:9). In Christ we see the glory of God in a human being. And even though Jesus was persecuted, tried, and crucified, the light cannot be extinguished. Jesus’ purpose in revealing God is to redeem people: “The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone” (1:4). Those who embrace Christ’s revelation and redemption with faith will gain eternal life.

Worship and the Spirit. Worship must take place “in spirit and in truth” (4:24), energized and informed by the Spirit of God. Nicodemus had to be born of “water and Spirit” to enter the Kingdom of God (3:5). In Galilee, after feeding the 5,000, Jesus told the crowd that living bread is available in his body, which was to be sacrificed. He instructed them to consume his body and blood, symbolic of the Lord’s Supper (6:51-59). Yet worship that is focused only on the individual elements and not accompanied by the Spirit of God is worth nothing (see 6:63).

Jesus Christ. John recorded Jesus’ descriptions about his nature, origin, and relationship to the Father. Jesus affirmed his oneness with the Father (10:30; 14:9-10) and their unity of purpose (5:17; 8:42), as well as their personal distinctiveness (14:28; 17:1-5). Jesus even used the very title (“I Am”) that God used for himself in the Old Testament, thus affirming his own deity (see 8:58; 18:4-5; Exod 3:13-14).

The Holy Spirit. John’s Gospel underscores the work of the Holy Spirit as a central feature of Jesus’ human experience (chs 4, 7) and of our lives (chs 3, 14, and 16). The transforming power of God’s Spirit is a hallmark of true discipleship.

The Mission of the Church. God sent Jesus into the world (8:18) to proclaim his glory and to testify to the Good News of redemption. After his departure, the Son continued this mission through the Spirit (16:5-11), who in turn would fill the church and empower believers to fulfill the mission of Jesus in the world (20:20-23; Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:7-8).

The End Times. Early Christians anticipated the return of Christ, and John affirms this anticipation. Yet in the meantime, believers can experience Jesus’ longed-for presence in the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ announcement of the Spirit’s coming echoes the language of his own second coming (see 14:15-26). In a vital way, Jesus is already with us in the Spirit as we continue to look forward to Christ’s personal return at the end of history.

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Gospel According to St. John

It is not material to enquire when and where this gospel was written; we are sure that it was given by inspiration of God to John, the brother of James, one of the twelve apostles, distinguished by the honourable character of that disciple whom Jesus loved, one of the first three of the worthies of the Son of David, whom he took to be the witnesses of his retirements, particularly of his transfiguration and his agony. The ancients tell us that John lived longest of all the twelve apostles, and was the only one of them that died a natural death, all the rest suffering martyrdom; and some of them say that he wrote this gospel at Ephesus, at the request of the ministers of the several churches of Asia, in opposition to the heresy of Corinthus and the Ebionites, who held that our Lord was a mere man. It seems most probable that he wrote it before his banishment into the isle of Patmos, for there he wrote his Apocalypse, the close of which seems designed for the closing up of the canon of scripture; and, if so, this gospel was not written after. I cannot therefore give credit to those later fathers, who say that he wrote it in his banishment, or after his return from it, many years after the destruction of Jerusalem; when he was ninety years old, saith one of them; when he was a hundred, saith another of them. However, it is clear that he wrote last of the four evangelists, and, comparing his gospel with theirs, we may observe, 1. That he relates what they had omitted; he brings up the rear, and his gospel is as the rearward or gathering host; it gleans up what they has passed by. Thus there was a later collection of Solomon's wise sayings (Pro 25:1), and yet far short of what he delivered, Kg1 4:32. 2. That he gives us more of the mystery of that of which the other evangelists gave us only the history. It was necessary that the matters of fact should be first settled, which was done in their declarations of those things which Jesus began both to do and teach, Luk 1:1; Act 1:1. But, this being done out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, John goes on to perfection (Heb 6:1), not laying again the foundation, but building upon it, leading us more within the veil. Some of the ancients observe that the other evangelists wrote more of the ta sōmatika - the bodily things of Christ; but John writes of the ta pneumatika - the spiritual things of the gospel, the life and soul of it; therefore some have called this gospel the key of the evangelists. Here is it that a door is opened in heaven, and the first voice we hear is, Come up hither, come up higher. Some of the ancients, that supposed the four living creatures in John's vision to represent the for evangelists, make John himself to be the flying eagle, so high does he soar, and so clearly does he see into divine and heavenly things.

THE author of the Fourth Gospel was the younger of the two sons of Zebedee, a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, who resided at Bethsaida, where were born Peter and Andrew his brother, and Philip also. His mother's name was Salome, who, though not without her imperfections (Mat 20:20-28), was one of those dear and honored women who accompanied the Lord on one of His preaching circuits through Galilee, ministering to His bodily wants; who followed Him to the cross, and bought sweet spices to anoint Him after His burial, but, on bringing them to the grave, on the morning of the First Day of the week, found their loving services gloriously superseded by His resurrection ere they arrived. His father, Zebedee, appears to have been in good circumstances, owning a vessel of his own and having hired servants (Mar 1:20). Our Evangelist, whose occupation was that of a fisherman with his father, was beyond doubt a disciple of the Baptist, and one of the two who had the first interview with Jesus. He was called while engaged at his secular occupation (Mat 4:21-22), and again on a memorable occasion (Luk 5:1-11), and finally chosen as one of the Twelve Apostles (Mat 10:2). He was the youngest of the Twelve—the "Benjamin," as DA COSTA calls him—and he and James his brother were named in the native tongue by Him who knew the heart, "Boanerges," which the Evangelist Mark (Mar 3:17) explains to mean "Sons of thunder"; no doubt from their natural vehemence of character. They and Peter constituted that select triumvirate of whom see on Luk 9:28. But the highest honor bestowed on this disciple was his being admitted to the bosom place with his Lord at the table, as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (Joh 13:23; Joh 20:2; Joh 21:7, Joh 20:24), and to have committed to him by the dying Redeemer the care of His mother (Joh 19:26-27). There can be no reasonable doubt that this distinction was due to a sympathy with His own spirit and mind on the part of John which the all-penetrating Eye of their common Master beheld in none of the rest; and although this was probably never seen either in his life or in his ministry by his fellow apostles, it is brought out wonderfully in his writings, which, in Christ-like spirituality, heavenliness, and love, surpass, we may freely say, all the other inspired writings.

After the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, we find him in constant but silent company with Peter, the great spokesman and actor in the infant Church until the accession of Paul. While his love to the Lord Jesus drew him spontaneously to the side of His eminent servant, and his chastened vehemence made him ready to stand courageously by him, and suffer with him, in all that his testimony to Jesus might cost him, his modest humility, as the youngest of all the apostles, made him an admiring listener and faithful supporter of his brother apostle rather than a speaker or separate actor. Ecclesiastical history is uniform in testifying that John went to Asia Minor; but it is next to certain that this could not have been till after the death both of Peter and Paul; that he resided at Ephesus, whence, as from a center, he superintended the churches of that region, paying them occasional visits; and that he long survived the other apostles. Whether the mother of Jesus died before this, or went with John to Ephesus, where she died and was buried, is not agreed. One or two anecdotes of his later days have been handed down by tradition, one at least bearing marks of reasonable probability. But it is not necessary to give them here. In the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) he was banished to "the isle that is called Patmos" (a small rocky and then almost uninhabited island in the Ægean Sea), "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rev 1:9). IRENÆUS and EUSEBIUS say that this took place about the end of Domitian's reign. That he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, and miraculously delivered, is one of those legends which, though reported by TERTULLIAN and JEROME, is entitled to no credit. His return from exile took place during the brief but tolerant reign of Nerva; he died at Ephesus in the reign of Trajan [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 3.23], at an age above ninety, according to some; according to others, one hundred; and even one hundred twenty, according to others still. The intermediate number is generally regarded as probably the nearest to the truth.

As to the date of this Gospel, the arguments for its having been composed before the destruction of Jerusalem (though relied on by some superior critics) are of the slenderest nature; such as the expression in Joh 5:2, "there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-gate, a pool," &c.; there being no allusion to Peter's martyrdom as having occurred according to the prediction in Joh 21:18 —a thing too well known to require mention. That it was composed long after the destruction of Jerusalem, and after the decease of all the other apostles, is next to certain, though the precise time cannot be determined. Probably it was before his banishment, however; and if we date it between the years 90 and 94, we shall probably be close to the truth.

As to the readers for whom it was more immediately designed, that they were Gentiles we might naturally presume from the lateness of the date; but the multitude of explanations of things familiar to every Jew puts this beyond all question.

No doubt was ever thrown upon the genuineness and authenticity of this Gospel till about the close of the eighteenth century; nor were these embodied in any formal attack upon it till BRETSCHNEIDER, in 1820, issued his famous treatise [Probabilia], the conclusions of which he afterwards was candid enough to admit had been satisfactorily disproved. To advert to these would be as painful as unnecessary; consisting as they mostly do of assertions regarding the Discourses of our Lord recorded in this Gospel which are revolting to every spiritual mind. The Tubingen school did their best, on their peculiar mode of reasoning, to galvanize into fresh life this theory of the post-Joannean date of the Fourth Gospel; and some Unitarian critics still cling to it. But to use the striking language of VAN OOSTERZEE regarding similar speculations on the Third Gospel, "Behold, the feet of them that shall carry it out dead are already at the door" (Act 5:9). Is there one mind of the least elevation of spiritual discernment that does not see in this Gospel marks of historical truth and a surpassing glory such as none of the other Gospels possess, brightly as they too attest their own verity; and who will not be ready to say that if not historically true, and true just as it stands, it never could have been by mortal man composed or conceived?

Of the peculiarities of this Gospel, we note here only two. The one is its reflective character. While the others are purely narrative, the Fourth Evangelist, "pauses, as it were, at every turn," as DA COSTA says [Four Witnesses, p. 234], "at one time to give a reason, at another to fix the attention, to deduce consequences, or make applications, or to give utterance to the language of praise." See Joh 2:20-21, Joh 2:23-25; Joh 4:1-2; Joh 7:37-39; Joh 11:12-13, Joh 11:49-52; Joh 21:18-19, Joh 21:22-23. The other peculiarity of this Gospel is its supplementary character. By this, in the present instance, we mean something more than the studiousness with which he omits many most important particulars in our Lord's history, for no conceivable reason but that they were already familiar as household words to all his readers, through the three preceding Gospels, and his substituting in place of these an immense quantity of the richest matter not found in the other Gospels. We refer here more particularly to the nature of the additions which distinguish this Gospel; particularly the notices of the different Passovers which occurred during our Lord's public ministry, and the record of His teaching at Jerusalem, without which it is not too much to say that we could have had but a most imperfect conception either of the duration of His ministry or of the plan of it. But another feature of these additions is quite as noticeable and not less important. "We find," to use again the words of DA COSTA [Four Witnesses, pp. 238, 239], slightly abridged, "only six of our Lord's miracles recorded in this Gospel, but these are all of the most remarkable kind, and surpass the rest in depth, specialty of application, and fulness of meaning. Of these six we find only one in the other three Gospels—the multiplication of the loaves. That miracle chiefly, it would seem, on account of the important instructions of which it furnished the occasion (John 6:1-71), is here recorded anew. The five other tokens of divine power are distinguished from among the many recorded in the three other Gospels by their furnishing a still higher display of power and command over the ordinary laws and course of nature. Thus we find recorded here the first of all the miracles that Jesus wrought—the changing of water into wine (Joh 2:1-11), the cure of the nobleman's son at a distance (Joh 4:43-54); of the numerous cures of the lame and the paralytic by the word of Jesus, only one—of the man impotent for thirty and eight years (Joh 5:1-9); of the many cures of the blind, one only—of the man born blind (Joh 9:1-12); the restoration of Lazarus, not from a deathbed, like Jairus' daughter, nor from a bier, like the widow of Nain's son, but from the grave, and after lying there four days, and there sinking into corruption (John 11:1-44); and lastly, after His resurrection, the miraculous draught of fishes on the Sea of Tiberias (Joh 21:5-11). But these are all recorded chiefly to give occasion for the record of those astonishing discourses and conversations, alike with friends and with foes, with His disciples and with the multitude which they drew forth."

Other illustrations of the peculiarities of this Gospel will occur, and other points connected with it be adverted to, in the course of the Commentary.

Next: John Chapter 1