The Gospel of John: An Exposition

BY The fourth Gospel has been ascribed from earliest times to the beloved disciple, the Apostle John. He was one of the sons of Zebedee. His mother Salome was especially devoted to the Lord. (See Luke vii:3; xxiii:55, and Mark xvi:1). He knew Him from the beginning of His ministry and had followed Him with much love and faithfulness, and seems to have been the most beloved of our Lord. He never mentions his name in the Gospel, but nevertheless speaks of himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved (Chapter xiii:23; xix:26; xx:2; xxi:7, 20, 24). With James and Peter he was singled out to witness the transfiguration and to go with the Lord to the garden of Gethsemane. The three also were present when the Lord raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead (Mark v:37). John was likewise an eye-witness of the sufferings of Christ (xix:26, 35).

The Johannine Authorship.

The Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel is proven by the testimony of the Church-fathers. Theophilus of Antioch, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, Eusebius, and above all, Irenaeus, speak of this Gospel as the work of the Apostle John. Other ancient authorities might be added. Of great value is the testimony of the two most pronounced enemie of Christianity, Porphyry and Julian. Both speak of the Gospel of John, and neither one doubted that the Apostle John wrote this document. Had there been any evidence against the Johannine authorship we may rest assured that these two prominent adversaries would have made good use of it to reject the authenticity of the Gospel, which emphasizes so fully the absolute Deity of Christ.

The most interesting and conclusive evidence for the Johannine authorship is furnished by Irenaeus and Polycarp.

/ Polycarp had known the Apostle John personally, and Irenaeus knew Polycarp. Ina letter to his friend Florinus, Irenaeus wrote as follows:

“I can describe the very place in which the blessed Poly-

lycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life, and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the people, and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and about His miracles, and about His teaching, as having received them from eye-witnesses of the life of the Word, would relate altogether in accordance with the Scriptures.”

Now Irenaeus who had known Polycarp the friend and companion of the Apostle John, speaks of the Gospel of John as the work of the Apostle John; he treats the entire fourth Gospel as a well-known and long used book in the Church, He does not mention what authority he had for doing this. There was no need for it in his day, for everybody knew that this Gospel had been written by John. ““‘When Irenaeus who had conversed with Polycarp, the friend of the ApostleJohn, quotes this Gospel as the work of the Apostle, we may fairly presume that he had assured himself of this by the testimony of one so well capable of informing him.”* This strongest evidence for the Johannine authorship has been ably stated by R. W. Dale of Birmingham in the following words: — ‘“‘Trenaeus had heard Polycarp describe his intercourse with John and the rest who had seen the Lord; this must have been long after John’s death, perhaps as late as A. D. 145, or even A. D. 150, for Irenaeus lived into the third century. Was the Fourth Gospel published before that time? Then Polycarp must have spoken of it; if John had not written it, Polycarp would have denied that it was genuine; and Irenaeus, who reverenced Polycarp, would never have received it. But if it was not published before that time, if it was unknown to John’s friend and disciple forty or fifty years after John’s death, then, again, it is incredible that Irenaeus should have received it.”

Polycarp’s martyrdom was in the year A. D. 155 or A. D. 156. He had known John; and for more than fifty years after the death of John he was one of the trustees and guardians of John’s memory. During a great part of that time he was the most conspicuous personage among the Churches of Asia Minor. Nor did he stand alone. He lived to such an advanced age, that he probably survived

*Dean Alford, Greek N. T.

THE GOSPEIz. OF JOHN 7

all the men who had listened with him to John’s teaching; but for thirty or forty years after John’s death there must have been a large number of other persons who would have associated themselves with him in rejecting a Gospel which falsely claimed John’s authority. While these persons lived, such a Gospel would have had no chance of reception; and for thirty years after their death, their personal friends, who had heard them speak of their intercourse with John, would have raised a great controversy if they had been asked to receive as John’s a Gospel of which the men who had listened to John himself had never heard, and which contained a different account of our Lord from that which John had given. But within thirty years after the martyrdom of Polycarp our fourth Gospel was universally regarded by the Church as having a place among the Christian Scriptures, and as the work of the Apostle John. The conclusion seems irresistible; John must have written it.

The Defeat of the Critics.

The Johannine authorship of this Gospel was first doubted by an English clergyman by name of Evanson, who wrote on it in 1792. In 1820 Prof. Bretschneider followed in the history of the attack upon the authorship of this Gospel. Then came the Tubingen school, Strauss and Baur. Baur, the head of the Tubingen school gave the year 170 as the date when the Gospel of John was written; others put the date at 140; Keim, another critic, at 130; Renan between 117 and 138 A. D. But some of these rationalists were forced to modify their views. The Tubingen school was completely defeated and is now the dead thing of the past. We could fill many pages with the views and opinions of these critics and the answers which able scholars who maintain the orthodox view, have given to them. This, we are sure, is not needed for true believers. ‘The ripest and the best scholarship declares now that the fourth Gospel was written by John. Well said Neander, ‘This Gospel, if it be not the work of the Apostle John, is an insoluble enigma.”

While the correct year in which the Gospel of John was written cannot be given, it seems quite evident that it was about the year 90 A. D.

road

-

The Purpose of the Gospel of John.

Modern critics of this Gospel have opposed the genuineness, of it on the ground of the radical diversity between the views of the Person of Christ and His teachings as presented in the Gospel of John and the Synoptics. Such a diversity certainly exists, but it is far from being an evidence against the genuineness of this Gospel. It is an argument for it.

Keep reading