alone, but only those of the most public character, with but two exceptions (the walking on the sea, and the second miraculous draught of fishes), performed at Jerusalem, the very centre of opposition and enmity to Him, and in the presence of great numbers of witnesses; and in regard to the two exceptions named they were admirably fitted to give weight to the personal testimony of the apostles as witnesses for the Messiahship of Jesus. Remembering what the apostle himself says as to the reason for the signs written in this book, and that he wrote after the other evangelists and after a long residence outside of Palestine, as in the presence of the great Gentile world, and in one of its most celebrated capitals, we are furnished with a key which will unfold the bearing of the several parts of this Gospel, not only the miracles but the parables and discourses, and the events recorded in it and their relation to its great topic, that Jesus is the Saviour of men. "All who have examined this Gospel with care have noticed a marked peculiarity in the order and the arrangement of the narrative, and in the principles of selection which apparently determined the author in his choice of what should be inserted. The explanation of this peculiarity is doubtless to be found primarily and mainly in the fact that he was writing a life of Jesus, not for its own sake, but for the purpose of proving thereby that He was the Christ, the Son of God. This being his aim, he shapes all things to the end which he has in view." This specific and distinctly announced design is never for a moment lost sight of. He had the world, especially outside of Judæa, for which he was then labouring and writing, constantly in his thoughts. ANALYSIS. PART FIRST consists of a series of proofs or signs that Jesus was the predicted Messiah, the appointed Saviour of the world; or, it is a record of what Jesus made known of Himself to convince the unbelieving. Chaps. 1. to XII. 1. He starts with the truth, as lying at the foundation of all, that the Messiah was no other than the Eternal Word made flesh: chap. i. 1-14. 2. Testimony of John the Baptist, acknowledged as one of the greatest prophets by the Jews, to the pre-existence and Messiahship of Jesus chap. i. 15-31. 1 Boston Lectures, 1872: Christianity and Scepticism, Lecture VI., by Rev. Timothy Dwight, D.D. Pp. 160, 161. Dr. Dwight maintains that John meant to have his narrative bear a peculiar relation to his own experience, and the way in which his own religious life originated. 3. Testimony of John the Baptist to his own followers, whereby Jesus wins His first disciples from among them: chap. i. 35-51. 4. Jesus manifests His glory by turning water into wine, His first miracle chap. ii. 1-11. 5. He exhibits His control over the wills of men, at the cleansing of the temple: chap. ii. 12-25. 6. The conviction wrought in the mind of one of the most intelligent of the Jews, a member of their great council, that Jesus had a Divine commission: chap. iii. 1-21. 7. The final and most complete testimony of that great prophet and holy man, John the Baptist, to the Divine mission and Messiahship of Jesus chap. iii. 22-36. : 8. The Messiahship of Jesus acknowledged among those natural enemies of His nation, the Samaritans: chap. iv. 1-42. 9. A nobleman, probably a courtier of Herod Antipas, is convinced, and believes in Jesus: chap. iv. 43–54. 10. Christ performs a miracle on that great public occasion, the Passover, which, in contrast with false miracles, points Him out as the Son of God and Saviour of the world: chap. v. 1-16. 11. The dignity of Christ's character and the Divinity of His person as asserted by Himself: chap. v. 17-29. 12. God's testimony to Jesus as His Son and our Saviour, in the miracles He wrought and the prophecies that were fulfilled in Him: chap. v. 30-47. 13. By His miracle in creating supplies for several thousands of people, so deep was the conviction wrought in their minds that He was the Messiah, that they were ready to make Him their king: chap. vi. 1-15. 14. By His authority over the elements of nature Jesus shows to His disciples that the greatest throne on earth would confer no power or elevation on Him: chap. vi. 16–21. 15. In a discourse called forth by the enthusiasm of the people, in consequence of His miracle in feeding the five thousand, Jesus lays claims to functions which can belong only to the promised Messiah and Divine Saviour: chap. vi. 22–71. 16. At the feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem, He vindicates His Messiahship before a promiscuous assemblage of the people with convincing power: chap. vii. 1-31. 17. Such was the impression made by Him even on the officers of the Sanhedrin sent to arrest Him, that they failed to do it: chap. vii. 32-53. 18. Such was the conviction wrought in the consciences of the members of the Sanhedrin itself, that they retired abashed from His presence: chap. viii. 1-11. T 19. Christ again bears testimony to His exalted dignity and Divinity: chap. viii. 12-59. 20. His Messiahship proved by a miracle established by testimony, elicited after the most rigid scrutiny by His enemies sitting in a judicial capacity: chap. ix. 1-41. 21. The character of Christ (the Good Shepherd) a proof of His Messiahship: chap. x. 1-21. 22. Jesus declares His Messiahship distinctly, claiming equality with the Father: chap. x. 22-42. 23. The miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus an illustrious proof of the Messiahship of Jesus: chap. xi. 1–54. 24. The risen Lazarus a living witness among the Jews to His Messiahship: chap. xi. 55-xii. 1–11. 25. Jesus is proclaimed Messiah by the multitude at Jerusalem, at His triumphal entry: chap. xii. 12-19. 26. His Divine Sonship proclaimed by a voice from heaven, in the ears of certain representatives of the Gentile world: chap. xii. 20-33. 27. The rejection of Jesus by the Jews, notwithstanding the evidence of His Messiahship, was a fulfilment of prophecy: chap. xii. 34-50. PART SECOND: Evidence that Jesus is the Saviour of the world, derived from His intercourse and discourses in private with His chosen friends, and especially as seen in the great sacrifice offered by Him and its acceptance for the salvation of the world. Chaps. XIII. to XXI. 1. The self sacrificing spirit which will enable His disciples to find happiness in any service, however humble, which brotherly love requires one to render to another: chap. xiii. 1-17. 2. Foretells His betrayal by Judas: chap. xiii. 18-30. 3. Final instructions of Christ to His followers, first removes their perplexities and misgivings: chap. xiii. 31-xiv. 1-7. 4. Proofs of His Messiahship in the provision made for His continued presence in the mission of the Holy Comforter: chap. xiv. 8-31. 5. Strength and comfort from union with Christ absent, by faith through the Spirit: chap. xv. 1-27. 6. Doctrine concerning the mission of the Comforter fully developed chap. xvi. 1-33. : 7. Messiah's prayer for His followers: chap. xvii. 1-26. 8. The Divinity of Messiah seen in the hour of His deepest humiliation in the garden of agony: chap. xviii. 1-9. 9. Fulfilment of His prediction in regard to the denial of Peter: chap. xviii. 10-27. 10. Evidences of the Messiahship of Jesus in His trial before Pilate: chap. xviii. 28-xix. 1-16. 11. Evidences seen in His crucifixion and the manner of His death: chap. xix. 17-30. 12. The supernatural in the death, and the Divine interposition in the burial, of Christ: chap. xix. 31-42. 13. Crowning proof of the Messiahship of Jesus, His resurrection from the dead: chap. xx. 1-31. 14. After His resurrection He performs similar miracles to those performed before His crucifixion, and thus identifies Himself in the highest regions of proof with the Jesus who died: chap. xxi. 1-25. The disciple whom Jesus loved, in carrying out his particular design according to the above order of arrangement, has given us the fullest and deepest picture of his love. But we find scattered over the pages of the other evangelists passages which are in entire barmony with the peculiar strain of John. While John discloses to us a more inward aspect of the doctrine of Christ, and supplies many propositions we could not directly gather from his predecessors, the moral and practical bearings of the four evangelists are in close and thorough correspondence. "Socrates," says Renan, "who like Jesus did not write, is made known to us by two of his disciples, Xenophon and Plato." He likens the synoptists to Xenophon, and makes John the Plato. But Plato and Xenophon, in their rival representations of Socrates, present two systems, the ethical bearings of which appear to be widely different, if not altogether irreconcilable. No such divergence from the other evangelists can be discovered in John. The four all have the same ethical basis, and they go to produce the very same frame of mind and course of action.2 of The opinion that St. John had a polemical object has no better foundation than that he wrote to provide a supplement to the other Gospels. He wrote not primarily to refute errorists, but that men might believe and have life. "There may be truth in that surmise, that his spirit, kindled and informed by a higher Light, looked back upon the growth of his own faith in the Master who loved him, and he wrote for other men that which had led himself into the way life; that his Gospel is not so much a history of the Lord as a history of those things which led himself to know and believe in the Lord. At any rate, the object of this Gospel is patent, to reveal to men the glory of Christ as it was manifested in His earthly struggle. In the first four chapters the Lord is seen gathering to Himself those who seek 1 See Matt. xi. 27; Luke x. 22. 2 See Article on "Ecce Homo," by Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, in Good Words. the truth, whilst the evil storm of opposition and unbelief begins to lower and mutter. From the fifth to the twelfth chapters the struggle with the unbelief of the world is open and severe; the Lord on the one side reveals Himself, the Jews on the other reject Him. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth chapters, He reveals Himself (through those more tender and richer unfoldings of the truth in His discourses with His chosen friends) and all that He is or can do with the Father on man's behalf. In the closing chapters He suffers when the rest of His work is finished, and rises again in final triumph, to send the promised Comforter, that through Him all that believe might have life. The glorious conquest of Christ over evil (or His power to effect this conquest), shown to men in order that they might believe and might have life through believing, this was the apostle's purpose. Who so fit to write on such a theme as he that had been a near spectator both of the struggle and the victory? Such an explanation is as far as possible from the notion that the writer had in view (controversially) new doctrines about the person of the Lord, and from the opinion to which the ancient writers gave too much countenance, that this is a polemic against Cerinthus and Ebion and the Gnostics. One writing of the incarnation in the midst of certain errors could not but write so that the errors should meet their refutation. But there is no pervading controversial aim, of direct polemical matter there is not one syllable in this Gospel. It is polemical in that, being true, it is a touchstone of error; it is against the modern Socinus almost in the same sense that it is against the ancient Cerinthus." 1 "We have in this Gospel an exhibition of the power of Christianity as it presents itself to men of the most thoughtful and the purest minds. The author of it, as the world is coming to acknowledge more and more, belonged to this class of men, and was even an exalted one among them. He had indeed the devotion and love that belong to a woman, but the strength of intellect and the profound thought which characterize the higher order of men. We learn from it that the richest life of the richest soul, perchance, the world has ever known came to its earthly perfection through its following of Jesus as the incarnate Son of God." 2 "As regards the substance, the superhuman in Christ, the necessity of faith in Him, regeneration, the mystical union of believers with Him and with one another, the commandment of love, and the blessing attached to it, these are the chief themes of John's teaching, and many of the facts recorded by him and peculiar to this Gospel cor 1 Quarterly Review, Art., Life of our Lord. No. ccxl., Oct., 1866. 2 Boston Lectures, 1872: Christianity and Scepticism, Lecture VI., by Rev. Timothy Dwight, D.D., Yale College. Pp. 190, 193. |