Summary: Bible - Book of John

The GIST

John, a book of the Bible, is the fourth Gospel and the one that sounds least like the others. Where Matthew, Mark and Luke move through short sayings and parables, John slows down for long conversations, a handful of carefully chosen miracles it calls signs, and a Jesus who speaks openly about who he is. Tradition, first found in Irenaeus in the second century, attributes it to John the Apostle. Most modern scholars doubt that, though many think the unnamed "disciple whom Jesus loved" stands behind much of its content. The book never names its author; its last lines say only, "This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things". The scholarly consensus dates it to about 90 to 100 AD.

Its purpose is stated without disguise near the end: "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." Everything in it serves that aim. It contains some of the clearest statements in the New Testament identifying Jesus with God, and some of the best-known sentences in the Bible.

What It Says

The prologue (1:1 to 18). John begins before any birth, before Abraham, before the world: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This Word, the Logos, is the source of life and light, "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." Then comes the claim on which the whole Gospel rests: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us". The reader is told at the outset what the characters in the story will struggle to see.

The Book of Signs: first disciples and first signs (chapters 1 to 4). John the Baptist appears here chiefly as a witness. Seeing Jesus, he says, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." Disciples gather by word of mouth. Philip tells Nathanael he has found the one Moses wrote about, Jesus of Nazareth, and gets a sceptic's reply: "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Philip's answer is the Gospel's invitation in three words: "Come and see."

The first sign is at a wedding "in Cana of Galilee". The wine runs out, the mother of Jesus tells the servants, "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it", and water becomes wine so fine that the master of the feast says, "thou hast kept the good wine until now." In Jerusalem Jesus clears the Temple and speaks a riddle: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."

Two conversations follow, with two very different people. Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a ruler, comes to Jesus by night and is told, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." He takes it literally: "How can a man be born when he is old?" Out of that exchange comes the most quoted verse in the book: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Then, at a well in Samaria, Jesus asks a woman for a drink and offers her "living water". She too starts with the literal, "Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep", and is led toward worship that is tied to no mountain or temple: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." A nobleman's sick son is healed at a distance, which John counts as "the second miracle".

Signs and conflict (chapters 5 to 10). At the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem Jesus tells a disabled man, "Rise, take up thy bed, and walk." It is the sabbath, and the dispute that follows turns on Jesus calling God his Father, "making himself equal with God." By the sea of Galilee a boy's "five barley loaves, and two small fishes" feed a multitude with twelve baskets to spare. Next day Jesus explains the sign, and the first of the great "I am" sayings arrives: "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger". The teaching is hard and many leave. Asked whether the Twelve will go too, Peter answers, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life."

In Jerusalem the arguments sharpen. A woman accused of adultery is brought to him, and he says, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her", then to her, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." He declares, "I am the light of the world", and promises, "ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The debate ends with the starkest claim yet: "Before Abraham was, I am."

Chapter 9 is a small masterpiece. Jesus gives sight to "a man which was blind from his birth", sending him to wash in the pool of Siloam. The authorities question the man again and again, and he grows bolder as they grow angrier, until he gives the answer nobody can argue with: "one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." Then Jesus speaks of himself as the gate and the guardian of a flock: "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." And, more starkly, "I and my Father are one."

Lazarus (chapters 11 and 12). The last and greatest sign takes place at Bethany, in the house of Martha, Mary and their brother Lazarus, whom Jesus loved. Lazarus falls ill and dies before Jesus comes. To Martha he says, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live". On the way to the tomb comes a verse of two words, "Jesus wept", and then the loud cry: "Lazarus, come forth." The miracle seals his fate. The high priest Caiaphas argues "that one man should die for the people", and the plot to kill him takes shape. At a supper in Bethany Mary anoints his feet with costly ointment "and the house was filled with the odour". With his hour near, Jesus gives a picture of what his death will mean: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

The Book of Glory: the last night (chapters 13 to 17). John has no bread and cup at the supper. Instead Jesus takes a towel and a basin "and began to wash the disciples' feet". He gives a command to match the act: "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you". The long Farewell Discourse follows, spoken to friends who are about to lose him. "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." "I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman." "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." He promises not to leave them alone but to send "another Comforter", the Spirit of truth. He is honest about what is coming and sure of the outcome: "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Then he prays, for himself, for them, and for those who will believe through them, "That they all may be one".

Arrest, trial and cross (chapters 18 and 19). Across the brook Cedron, in a garden, soldiers come for Jesus of Nazareth. He answers, "I am he", and they fall back to the ground. Peter cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant, Malchus. Before Pilate the talk is of kingship and truth. "Art thou the King of the Jews?" the governor asks, and, a little later, "What is truth?" He finds no fault, has Jesus scourged, and presents him in a crown of thorns and a purple robe: "Behold the man!" The title on the cross reads "JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS", and Pilate refuses to change it. From the cross Jesus entrusts his mother to the disciple he loved. His last words here are a statement of completion: "It is finished". A soldier pierces his side. Joseph of Arimathaea, a secret disciple, and Nicodemus, bringing myrrh and aloes, bury him.

The empty tomb and after (chapters 20 and 21). On the first day of the week Mary Magdalene comes "when it was yet dark" and finds the stone gone. She runs for Peter and the beloved disciple. Later, weeping in the garden, she does not know the man who speaks to her until he says her name: "Mary." She answers, "Rabboni". That evening he stands among the disciples behind shut doors: "Peace be unto you." Thomas, who was absent, refuses to believe without touching the wounds. Eight days later he is invited to do so and says the highest thing anyone says in the Gospel: "My LORD and my God." Jesus blesses those who will never have that chance: "blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

An epilogue is set by the sea of Tiberias. After a night's fishing and a breakfast on the shore, Jesus asks Peter three times, "lovest thou me?", and three times charges him to feed his lambs and his sheep. The book closes by saying the world could not hold the books that might be written about what Jesus did.

Why It Matters

John's structure is deliberate: a prologue, a Book of Signs, a Book of Glory and an epilogue, with seven signs and seven "I am" sayings. Its differences from the other three Gospels are large. It has no birth story, no exorcisms and, most scholars say, no parables. The cleansing of the Temple comes early, the ministry spans three Passovers, and the Kingdom of God, the great theme of the others, is mentioned only twice. Its theme is Jesus himself as the source of eternal life. Most scholars now think John knew and used the other Gospels freely.

Its picture of the Word draws, scholars say, on both the Jewish figure of Wisdom and Greek philosophy. The cross in John is a "lifting up", a glorification as much as a death. For much of the twentieth century the Gospel was read as the product of a separate community cut off from the synagogue, a view increasingly questioned, as is the old judgment that it has little historical value; archaeologists note how well it knows places such as the pools of Bethesda and Siloam. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas wrote commentaries on it, and Bach set its Passion to music.

Who Should Read It

Anyone who wants to understand what Christians mean when they call Jesus divine, and anyone who loves a book that rewards rereading. Its sentences are simple and its depths are not. Readers return to it most of all for the conversations.