An Expository Study of John’s Gospel
INTRODUCTION
John was one of three in the inner circle (Mark 5:37; 9:2; 14:33): leaning on Jesus’ bosom at the Supper (John 13:23); following the Lord into the high priest’s palace (18:15) and to the place of crucifixion where the Lord committed His mother to John (19:26, 27). With Peter, John ran to the tomb on the resurrection morning and in the evening saw the risen Lord (20:1-23). After Pentecost he was Peter’s companion on several occasions (Acts 3:1; 4:19; 8:14). John was in Jerusalem when Paul visited the city after his first missionary journey (Acts 15:6; Gal. 2:9).
John wrote with a spiritual purpose: leading men to believe in the Lord. This he sought to do by proving the deity of the Lord by His “signs”. John also writes of the person and work of the Lord (e.g., 1:1-5; 9-18; 2:23-25; 3:31-36; 5:30-47; 6:66-69; 8:46-59; 9:35-41; 10:22-39; etc.), applying figures to the Lord, such as Bread, Light, Shepherd, Truth, Life, Vine, etc. John writes about:
1. The Essential Glory of the Son of God (1:1-5).
2. The Incarnation and General Reception of the Son of God (1:6-18).
3. The Revelation of the Son of God to Israel (1:19 - 12:50).
4. The Revelation of the Son of God to the Disciples (chs. 13-17).
5. The Glorification of the Son of God in His Passion (chs. 18, 19).
6. The Manifestation of the Son of God in Resurrection, Power and Glory (chs. 20, 21).
There are many peculiarities: John’s Gospel has an announced purpose (John 20:30, 31; cf. Luke 1:1-4); John omits the account of the birth of John the Baptizer, and the Lord’s birth, genealogy, youth, baptism, temptation, transfiguration, and ascension; John gives us eight miracles and all but two, feeding of the 5,000 and walking on the sea (6:4-21), are peculiar to John; Some of the characteristic words in John are: “Believe” and cognates, about 100 times (strangely enough, “belief” and “faith” never occur in John’s Gospel), God as “Father,” 122 times; “glory” and cognates, 33 times; “love” and cognates, 57 times; “verily, verily,” 25 times; Christ appears under different titles, such as, the Word, the Only Begotten, the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the True Bread, the Light, the Shepherd, the Door, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Resurrection, and the Vine. Many of these are introduced by “I am,” implying deity. There are also other ways in which the deity of Christ is suggested.
Format and purpose
The format of John’s Gospel is obviously different from Matthew, Mark and Luke. It is not a biography. It contains a special plan, worked out carefully by John, and followed closely. He states his purpose for writing the book in chapter 20. Usually, an author writes the preface when his book is complete, because the preface tells us what is in the book and, usually, that is best done when the book is finished. John decided to tell us his purpose for writing near the end. “And many other signs did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name” (John 20:30-31). John writes to create faith, but the word, “faith”, never appears in the book. However, the word “believe” appears about 100 times, and this is why some commentators label it as the “Gospel of Belief.”
Faith builder
John’s Gospel will convert atheists as well as those with a religious background. The reason it is such an appropriate book for one considering Christianity is because it builds faith. John wrote it for that purpose. He also said there were many other “signs” of the Master he did not write about, but those in the book are carefully selected to teach us faith.
A drama
Drama is based on conflict and without conflict there can be no drama. Usually there is a protagonist, the one we favor; and the antagonist or the opponent. Usually, we do not like the antagonist. If the protagonist wins it is a comedy; if the antagonist wins it is a tragedy. The Gospel of John is the greatest drama you will ever read.
The making of a drama
Most dramas start with a “Prologue”. Then the author develops the “Plot”. While developing the plot, the author then moves toward a “Crises”. After the crises, there is a “resolution;” and sometimes an “Epilogue” or a moral statement following the resolution of the crises.
John follows that pattern
His “Prologue” (1:1-18) reveals what the book is about – Jesus the Son of God becoming flesh to dwell among men. The “Period of Consideration” (1:19 to 4:15) lets us know that He presented Himself before society for that entire period to give people a time to be exposed to Him; to evaluate Him; to consider Him based on His claims. As soon as he began to get His consideration accepted by some, He felt rejection by those who did not favor what he came to accomplish, and controversy began, thus creating conflict. The controversy throughout the Gospel according to John will be pictured on one side by belief and on the other side by unbelief. These are the protagonist and antagonist throughout the book. Through the period of controversy people are undecided about whether to stand on the side of belief or unbelief? Next, we have the “Period of Conflict” (7:1 to 11:53). This is where the controversy is set in motion and people begin to take sides. Those on the one side are opposed to the ones on the other side. As soon as the conflict reaches a “Crises” (11:54 to 12:36), we then come to the point when something has to be resolved, if the drama is to have some kind of resolution. So, during the “Period of Conference” (12:26b to 17:26), the Lord meets with His twelve chosen, dismissing the betrayer early. Jesus, the Protagonist, then explains all that needs to be known by these confidants – the disciples. When the period of conference is over, the conflict that has come to crises is going to find its resolution. That is the “Period of Consummation” (18:1 to 20:31), or the climax; the betrayal, the cross, the resurrection. After the climax, John writes an “Epilogue” (21:1-25) of what happens when all of this is past and seven disciples meet the Lord for breakfast on the Sea of Galilee.
Sensing the movement
After reading through it, one can sense the movement of this plot and the development of the drama, which is being played out in actual life. The friends of God, the believers in Christ will at first, slowly, and then later, rapidly, emerge. And His enemies are at first slow to act, then later bolder, and before long they are ready to kill Him and finally do.
Open conflict
So, at this point it has come into open conflict; coming to a crises, waiting for a resolution and no one could have anticipate what that resolution would be.
The miracles
Each miracle was chosen for a specific purpose. During the “Period of Consideration”, the Lord wanted the people to see Him for Who He truly was and is.
Jesus – Ruler of quality
1. The first miracle (making water into wine) revealed His power over quality in creation. He took jugs of water and made wine; better than any of the wine provided earlier at the feast. The master of ceremonies quickly recognized the superior quality of the wine, not knowing that Jesus had just made it. Jesus certainly is the ruler of quality; quality creation.
Jesus – healer
2. When He healed the Nobleman's son, He did not even bother to go to him. And why? Because He did not need to. He healed him from afar. So, He has the power to heal, period! Distance presents no problem at all. We need to learn this with reference to our praying. If God decides to answer our prayers; desiring healing for ourselves or anyone for whom we wish to make requests, He is at no disadvantage because He is enthroned in heaven. He can heal from there just fine.
Jesus – God of time
3. In the parable of the lame man healed at the pool, Jesus not only healed the man's disease, but He overcome an infirmity that had been present with the man for 38 years, proving that time is no problem with Jesus. It matters not how long a problem has existed. Someone recently prayed for one with cancer and said, “God if it’s possible, please help.” With God anything is possible. “If it is possible” should be left out of our prayers completely. “Father, if you be willing” or “Father, if it’s consistent with Your will”, but never, “Father, if it’s possible.” God can raise the dead, as we will see, and if He can do that, He can certainly heal the sick. In fact, when Martha and Mary told Him that his friend was sick, they believed He could heal him, but they were not yet ready for Him to raise the dead. But He can.
Jesus – Master of quantity
4. In the feeding of the 5,000, we see there is no request too big for the Lord. He is Master over quantity. He can multiply bread and He can make bread. When He was being tempted, Satan wanted Him to turn stones into bread. Jesus certainly could have done so, but in this situation he would have yielded to Satan, and He was not about to do that. He continued hungry rather than turn the stones to bread. However, He now takes five little loaves of bread, and two little fish, and turns them into enough food to feed 5,000 men, not counting women and children. He also had more left over than He started with. The Lord is Master of quantity – quantity creation.
Jesus – Lord of nature
5. From walking on water we learn that He is Lord of nature. He caused that storm to cease and the waves to flatten out and He can control storms today. His power has not been shortened. There has been no curtailment of His ability to do anything He wishes to do in nature. He once made the sun stand still and scientist have been writing about it ever since. How? He just spoke it and it was so. Just like He made the sun in the first place; He said let there be a sun in the heavens and there was a sun in the heavens. Yes, He is Master of nature.
Jesus – Master of infirmity
6. In the healing of the man born blind, He is the Master of infirmities; Master of healing. Again, He is the Master of time, because the man had been blind since birth. In that day, such cases were considered absolutely unreleavable much less healable, but He healed him.
Jesus – Master of death
7. We now come to the raising of Lazarus. The great lesson we will learn here is that those who are living in the Lord do not ever have to be concerned about not being in the Lord. Even in death, He is Master. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, Verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live” (John 5:24, 25). Those who hear Him and believe on Him shall live, if they respond to His call of the Gospel. Jesus said to Martha, “. . . he that believeth in me, thou he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die . . .” (John 11:25). That does not mean we will not fill a grave. It means that even though our spirit will leave our body, it will not die, and when the time comes for that spirit to be reunited to the resurrected body, our life will continue uninterrupted. That is why it is often said, “Christians never say goodbye for the last time”. A Christian may say goodbye here on earth for the last time; but really it is goodbye down here and good morning up there. Christians need to appreciate more their great heritage in Christ.
Miracles of miracles
Seven miracles have been mentioned so far in our study, but the miracle of all miracles is the one in chapter 20 – His own resurrection from the dead. His resurrection is the resolution of the crises which began in the Garden of Eden and raged until His resurrection. He tells us that in His own time and way, He will one day utter a call and
every grave will open and the sea will give up its dead. Those whose ashes have been scattered over the sea will be gathered together, too, because God has never lost control of them. Then, all will come before Him in judgment. There will be a difference in the quality of resurrection between the righteous and unrighteous.
Reoccurring themes
In this tremendous drama, there are some themes that keep coming up. You will read a lot about “light;” “life;” “darkness;” “belief;” “witness;” “work.” They come up again and again and are always symbolic.
He cares for us
The book of John contains twenty-seven interviews; some public, some private. It has a great number of dialogues where Jesus and someone else are talking and interchanging information. Usually the one speaking to Jesus provides information from the human side and Jesus provides the Divine side. Also, remember the cumulative power of all these miracles. When we come to know Him and believe that He is Master of everything, including our spirit and body, then we can be secure in the care of God, knowing the joy of being in the care of God. God not only made us in His image, He gladly accepted responsibility for us. If we are willing to live under His guidelines and under His gracious will, He will not only protect us, but He will preserve us now and forever. But even if we see fit to reject His Will, we are still under His control and one day He will assert that control to our everlasting regret.
Civil government
God formed civil government to control people who will not be controlled by Him. He wants to be our King and reign in our hearts. The Kingdom of God is within us when God reigns in our hearts. If we are living under God’s Law, then we do not need to worry about those made by man, because most of them are such that a Christian can live under God’s Law and under man’s law without any great conflict. Christians are required, as much as possible, to live under man's civil law. In other words it is wrong to disobey any good law, man’s or God’s. Likewise, it is wrong to obey any wrong law. God has never made any wrong laws, but man has. So, if man’s law conflicts with God’s law, we have two choices: (a) to obey God and disobey the law that goes against God’s will, or (b) obey man’s law and disobey God’s.
Preaching the Gospel
In Acts 4:18, the Sanhedrin said to Peter and John, we do not want you to talk about this Jesus anymore? And Peter and John said, “. . . Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” And they did. A preacher of the Gospel has no other option either. If someone says to a preacher, “You can’t preach on that;” he responds, “Well, you just wait and see.” Anything that the Lord has told a preacher to preach, he must preach. No matter who might be against him and try to stop him – the faithful preacher must preach God’s will as he understands it, without favor or fear.
A drama never acted out
As John’s drama unfolds, keep in mind that to those first readers, it was a brand new production. It had never been acted out. It was a drama they had never seen before. It was written years after most of the things it contained had already unfolded and had become history. They knew a little here and a little there about various things but they had never seen it in context, as laid out within the framework of John’s Gospel – this drama of the coming of Christ in the flesh. John’s work is almost totally confined to that theme and purpose.
Victory for the friends of Jesus
As you study each chapter, try to keep in mind where it is in the ministry of the Lord. Things go fairly well while He is in the “Period of Consideration”. When the “Period of Controversy” comes, you will be able to identify those who are with Him in their hearts, even if they do not openly express it, and those against Him in their hearts, even though they, too, may not openly express it – in time they will. Then the “Period of Conflict” begins, and, there is only one way for it to end – in “Crises”. When belief and unbelief come together there will always be conflict and crises. God foreknows the outcome but He lets man proceed. But always remember, it will come to pass to the victory of those who are friends of Jesus, the Protagonist, and to the eternal doom of those who are antagonist to Him.
The Choice
When a Christian goes out to evangelize it is important to remember that the Lord did not say, “I want you to convert the world.” A slogan was popular a few years ago, “We’re going to take the world for Christ.” Well, to this day we have not done so, and we never will. The Lord did not take the world while here. The apostles did not take the world for Christ. They did take Christ to the world. That is what He wants Christians to do. Let every person in the world have the opportunity, as well as, the obligation, to say “yes” or “no” to the Lord; to become a protagonist or an antagonist – a confidant for the Lord or Satan. The ones that listen may not realize the seriousness of the choice they are making, but nevertheless a choice it is. If the Lord is turned down, there is but one other master and kingdom. And, the destiny of that kingdom has already been set. Satan and his angels will certainly be in the hell prepared for them. We can either join them or the angels in heaven. The choice is ours. And our choice depends on how we react to what unfolds in John’s Gospel – it is that relevant to our lives.
The start
John begins by going back to the eternal past and identifies who was with God in the beginning; One who was God in the beginning; Who helped with the creation of the world. In fact He was the actual agent of creation. God gave the Word – the Holy Spirit made the communication and carried into effect whatever the Word (Logos) said. When He said, “Let there be light”, it was the Logos talking and the Holy Spirit brought light into being. And so it goes throughout Genesis 1.
Christ
Think for a moment about the life of the One Who became “Messiah” – Christ. In the beginning, He was identified as the spokesman for God, the communicator of everything from God to man. But He was not “Jesus” back then; He was Logos; He later became “Jesus”. Throughout the Old Testament He is identified as the Jehovah Angel – the Jehovah Messenger. For example, in Genesis 18, notice the three men who were entertained by Abraham. Soon, two of the angels went on their way to check out what was going on in Sodom. But the Lord remained with Abraham. Throughout the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) it was the Jehovah Angel; Logos. When Paul says: “Was He not with us in the wilderness?” (1 Cor. 10), he is speaking of Logos who was with the children of Israel in the wilderness – either in the cloud that attended them or in the pillar of fire by night as they were guided through the wilderness. But when the fullness of time came, He was born of a woman; born under the Law and became “Jesus”. He was not Jesus Christ at His birth. Remember, all the accounts of the Gospel were written some 30 years after the fact. By that time, He had been highly publicized and recognized as the Christ who was to come. While He was here in the flesh, he was “Jesus”, and only when He sat down at God’s right hand did He become Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). He is now Christ; King; Lord; High Priest; the Anointed One; and soon to be, Judge.
Summary
So, John starts with Him back at the very beginning of the universe, but He existed eternally before that – He did not need to be identified until it was necessary to talk to us, then He was identified first as Logos. So, when John says, “In the beginning was the Word”, he is saying Logos. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1, 2).
The Passion of Christ - John’s Gospel is filled with the passion and pathos of the Christ. The greatest sermon ever given to His disciples was first illustrated by the “washing of feet” and then pronounced in words that only Jesus could say. Foretelling His own betrayal, He “loved His disciples to the end” (13:1). Foreseeing Simon Peter’s denial and later forgiving and restoring him as an apostle foretells how quickly He receives again any of us who fail and fall.
The closeness to His Father was to foreshadow the real agony of His death; for on the cross He was outside His Father’s love and protection. The union of Christian and the coming church will forever be seen in “the vine and the branches.” The advanced information about the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit is only found in the Gospel of John. The coming battle between His followers and the world was His great concern; the prayer for unity that could not be broken still rings true today for those who follow Jesus.
The treachery of Judas; the experience in Gethsemane; the mock trials; the scourging; the beating; the burden of the cross; are all in vivid description. The care that Jesus demonstrated toward His mother, while on the cross, is especially touching. His love for the thief who believed, leads us to know that He did not die just for the world. No, He died for each of us, individually.
The resurrection, giving to every believer true hope, is fully described and witnessed in this great Gospel sermon. He wanted you to know Who died for you and is “the first born from the dead.” Then, His post-resurrection appearances; the marvelous peace that Jesus gave; and the personal way He appeared to so many of His disciples. Paul wrote, “If Christ be not raised from the dead, we are of all men most miserable and our faith is vain, and we are yet in our sins” (1 Cor. 15).
Then, we experience the final breakfast before His ascension. It is recorded and witnessed, and will by its very design make believers out of those who read it. Take your time. Read each inspired word of John’s Gospel carefully, for his book is not written as a commentary, but a devotional.
Illustration
A Christian lady – a notable soul-winner – was asked, “How many are teaching now?” The number was small, about eight. “What is the secret of your success,” she was asked, “for many are converted under your teaching and almost all remain true to their calling.” She responded, “The first three months we study the Gospel of John. After that you can’t keep them away.” Here is the greatest conclusion to be reached from the Gospel of John, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (3:16).
Conclusion
So, as we begin An Expository Study of John’s Gospel, let us keep in mind his spiritual aim.
“And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name” (20:30-31, NKJV).
“And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen” (21:25, NKJV).
