Introduction
John is often the first book of the Bible given to a new believer, and it is also the book that mature Christians never exhaust. An old saying compares it to waters shallow enough for a child to wade in and deep enough for an elephant to swim. Its vocabulary is simple, but its ideas reach from before creation to the life of the world to come.
John is the fourth Gospel and the most different from the other three. It records only a handful of miracles, which it calls signs, and gives most of its space to Jesus' conversations, his debates in Jerusalem and his farewell to his disciples. Its aim is clear: that readers would believe in Jesus and have life through him.
Who wrote John and when?
The evidence inside the book
The author knows Jewish feasts and purity customs, the geography of Jerusalem and the hostility between Jews and Samaritans. He writes as an eyewitness who saw Jesus' glory (John 1:14) and the blood and water flowing from his side (19:35). The closing verses identify the source of the book as the disciple whom Jesus loved (21:20-24), who appears at the supper (13:23), at the cross (19:26-27), at the empty tomb (20:2-8) and by the sea (21:7).
This disciple is distinguished from Peter and is one of the seven men fishing in chapter 21, a group that includes the sons of Zebedee (21:2). Since the apostle John, so prominent alongside Peter in the other Gospels and in Acts, is never named in this Gospel, many conclude that he is the beloved disciple, speaking of himself with humility.
The evidence from the early church
Irenaeus, who in his youth heard Polycarp, a disciple of John, wrote around AD 180 that John, the disciple of the Lord who had leaned on his breast, published his Gospel while living in Ephesus. Later writers agreed. Some modern scholars, reading a statement of Papias that mentions both the apostle John and a John called the elder, propose that the elder was the author or the editor of the apostle's testimony. The letters 2 John and 3 John come from someone who calls himself the elder (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Dating views
- AD 85-95. Most scholars place John last among the Gospels, in line with the tradition that he wrote in old age.
- Before AD 70. Some point out that the book never mentions the destruction of the temple and that it describes the pool of Bethesda in the present tense (5:2).
A small papyrus with words from John 18:31-33 and 37-38, often described as the oldest surviving fragment of any New Testament book, was found in Egypt and is usually dated to the first half of the second century, so the Gospel was already being copied far away by then.
Literary style and structure
A simple language for deep truths
John's Greek is among the easiest in the New Testament, and students of the language often read it first. Yet with a small set of words, such as light, life, truth, glory, witness, believe, know, love and abide, he builds a profound portrait of Jesus.
The shape of the book
- Prologue (1:1-18): the Word who was with God became flesh.
- The Book of Signs (1:19-12:50): public ministry, signs and growing conflict.
- The Book of Glory (13:1-20:31): the upper room, the cross and the resurrection.
- Epilogue (21:1-25): the risen Jesus by the sea and the future of Peter and the beloved disciple.
The calendar of feasts
John organizes much of the ministry around Jewish festivals: Passover (2:13), an unnamed feast (5:1), another Passover (6:4), Booths (7:2), Dedication (10:22) and the final Passover (11:55; 13:1). Since he mentions at least three Passovers, the ministry of Jesus is usually reckoned to have lasted at least two years and probably about three.
Signs and discourses
Often a sign is followed by a conversation that explains it: the feeding of the crowd leads to the bread of life discourse (chapter 6), the healing of the blind man illustrates the light of the world (chapters 8-9), and the raising of Lazarus reveals the resurrection and the life (chapter 11).
Misunderstanding, irony and the hour
People often misunderstand Jesus' words at a physical level: Nicodemus and being born again (3:3-4), the Samaritan woman and living water (4:10-15), the crowd and the bread (6:34), the disciples and the sleep of Lazarus (11:11-13). John also uses irony, as when the high priest Caiaphas unknowingly prophesies that one man will die for the nation (11:49-52). Throughout the first half Jesus' hour has not yet come (2:4; 7:30; 8:20); from chapter 12 on, it has arrived (12:23; 13:1; 17:1).
John in the story of the Bible
John's first words, in the beginning, deliberately recall Genesis 1:1. The Word through whom all things were made is the same creative word of God that spoke light into darkness. When John says the Word dwelt among us (1:14), he uses a verb that means to pitch a tent, recalling the tabernacle where God's glory filled the tent in the wilderness (Exodus 40:34).
The Gospel is full of the exodus story and Israel's worship. Jesus compares his being lifted up to the bronze serpent Moses lifted up (John 3:14; Numbers 21:8-9). He is the true bread from heaven, greater than the manna (John 6:31-35; Exodus 16). John the Baptist calls him the Lamb of God (John 1:29), and at the cross none of his bones is broken, as was commanded for the Passover lamb (John 19:36; Exodus 12:46). At the Feast of Booths, when water and light were part of the celebrations, Jesus offers living water and calls himself the light of the world (John 7:37-39; 8:12). He is the good shepherd that Ezekiel promised (Ezekiel 34) and the true vine, the faithful Israel that God planted (Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:8-16).
John also notes that Isaiah saw Jesus' glory (John 12:41; Isaiah 6). Looking forward, the same themes reappear in the letters of John, and the title Word of God returns in Revelation 19:13.
John and Jesus Christ
- Truly God. The Word was God (1:1); Jesus calls God his own Father, making himself equal with God (5:18); he says that before Abraham was, I am (8:58); and Thomas confesses him as Lord and God (20:28).
- Truly human. He is tired and thirsty at the well (4:6-7), weeps at Lazarus's tomb (11:35), is troubled in spirit (12:27), thirsts on the cross (19:28) and shows his wounded hands and side after the resurrection (20:27).
- The Lamb of God. He removes the sin of the world (1:29) and is condemned on the day of Preparation for the Passover (19:14).
- The revealer of the Father. Though no one has seen God, the only Son has revealed him (1:18), so that to see Jesus is to see the Father (14:9).
- The giver of life and of the Spirit. He gives life to whomever he chooses (5:21), promises rivers of living water, which John explains as the Spirit (7:37-39), and breathes on his disciples to receive the Holy Spirit (20:22).
- The King. Nathanael calls him King of Israel (1:49), he tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world (18:36), and the title on the cross proclaims him King of the Jews (19:19).
- Glorified on the cross. In John the cross is the moment of Jesus' glory, when he is lifted up and draws all people to himself (12:32-33), and his final word announces that his work is finished (19:30).
Interpretive challenges
Why does the cleansing of the temple come at the beginning?
The other Gospels place it in Jesus' last week; John places it at the first Passover (2:13-22). Some think Jesus cleared the temple twice, once at the start and once at the end of his ministry; others think John placed the event at the beginning for theological reasons, to present Jesus as the new temple from the outset. Both views are held by careful interpreters.
Was the Last Supper a Passover meal?
The other Gospels present the Last Supper as a Passover meal (Mark 14:12), while John says the leaders had not yet eaten the Passover on the morning of the trial (18:28) and that Jesus was condemned on the day of Preparation (19:14). Proposed explanations include the use of different calendars by different groups, or the reading of Passover in John 18:28 as the festival meals of the whole week and Preparation as the Friday of Passover week (compare 19:31). In both accounts Jesus dies at Passover as the true Passover lamb.
Who are the Jews in John?
John often uses the term for the religious authorities in Jerusalem who opposed Jesus. The parents of the healed blind man, themselves Jewish, were afraid of the Jews (9:22), which shows the word does not mean the whole people. Jesus and all his first disciples were Jewish, and Jesus says that salvation comes from the Jews (4:22). This Gospel must never be used to justify hostility toward Jewish people.
What does born of water and the Spirit mean?
In John 3:5 some see water as natural birth, others as baptism, and others as the cleansing God promised in Ezekiel 36:25-27, where clean water and a new Spirit appear together. The last view fits well with Jesus' rebuke that Nicodemus, a teacher of Israel, should have understood these things (3:10).
Little-known facts
- John never uses the noun faith, yet he uses the verb believe nearly a hundred times; for him faith is always something you do.
- John records no parables of the kind found in the other Gospels and no casting out of demons.
- Excavations in Jerusalem uncovered a large double pool near the area of the Sheep Gate, matching John's description of Bethesda, and in 2004 workers uncovered a large stepped pool of Siloam from the time of Jesus (5:2; 9:7).
- John records that the disciples caught exactly 153 large fish (21:11). Many symbolic meanings have been proposed, but none is certain, and the number may simply be an eyewitness's memory of the count.
- John 11:35, which says that Jesus wept, is the shortest verse in most English Bibles.
How to study John
A reading plan
One chapter a day takes three weeks. For a class, a seven-week series on the seven signs or on the seven I am sayings works well, followed by a few weeks in the upper room (chapters 13-17) and in the resurrection accounts.
What to look for
- The signs and the conversations that explain them.
- The I am sayings and the Old Testament background of each image.
- The words believe, witness, glory, hour, light and life.
- The way different people respond to Jesus: Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the blind man, Martha, Thomas.
Teaching it
For each passage ask: What does this reveal about who Jesus is? How do the people respond, with belief or unbelief? What would it mean to believe him today? John is also an excellent book to read with a seeker or a new believer, one chapter at a time, with the purpose statement of 20:30-31 as the guide. Invite the group to memorize John 3:16, John 14:6 and John 20:31.