John

Purpose & theme

John’s Gospel stands apart from the other three, soaring to the greatest heights in its portrait of Jesus. Where Matthew, Mark, and Luke begin with genealogies or the ministry of John the Baptist, John begins before creation itself: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). This eternal Word, through whom all things were made, “became flesh and dwelt among us” (1:14), and the whole Gospel is the unfolding of who this Word made flesh is. John states his purpose plainly and personally: “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:31). Everything in the Gospel serves that single aim: to bring the reader to saving faith in Jesus and, through faith, to eternal life.

John builds his case around seven miraculous “signs” (from turning water into wine to raising Lazarus from the dead) each revealing Jesus’ glory and pointing beyond itself to who He is. Woven through these are the great “I am” sayings, in which Jesus takes the divine name of God (“I AM”) and joins it to images of salvation: the bread of life, the light of the world, the door, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way and the truth and the life, and the true vine. The Gospel divides into two great halves: the “Book of Signs” (chapters 1-12), Jesus’ public ministry that provokes belief and unbelief, and the “Book of Glory” (chapters 13-21), in which He gathers His own in the upper room, lays down His life on the cross, and rises again. John’s Jesus is fully God and fully man, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and the risen Lord before whom Thomas falls, confessing, “My Lord and my God!”