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Gospel of John Overview: A Unique Eyewitness

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In this episode, David and Christine begin the series on the Gospel of John, exploring who John is as a unique eyewitness.

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One Gospel, Four Accounts: Why John Invites You Into the Life of Jesus

Show Notes

In this episode of the Spoken Gospel Podcast, hosts David and Christine open a brand-new series on the Gospel of John. Before diving into John 1, they spend the episode orienting listeners to the man behind the book, the purpose for which he wrote it, and the literary instincts readers will need if they want to read John on his own terms rather than importing modern expectations onto an ancient, deeply theological witness.

One Gospel in Four Voices, Not Four Different Gospels

A common objection in critical scholarship claims that John must have been written late, or by someone other than the apostle, because his account sounds so different from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Where the Synoptics tend toward chronological reporting, historical touchpoints, and prophetic fulfillment formulas, John unfolds in long discourses filled with imagery, repeated themes, and what scholars call a "high Christology." The dichotomy, though, is a false one. John is not inventing a more exalted Jesus than the other Gospel writers. He is proclaiming the same Jesus in a different register.

Every Gospel account makes unmistakable claims to the deity of Jesus. Mark opens with "the Gospel of Jesus, the Son of God." Luke records Jesus raising the dead on his own authority, something only Yahweh can do because every other life in creation is derivative. Matthew implies the title "Son of God" in his baptism scene. What John does differently is handhold the reader. Where the Synoptics embed the claim inside action and miracle, John often names the claim outright and lets the Pharisees articulate it for the reader: Jesus is making himself equal with God. These are not competing theologies but complementary testimonies. Put another way, it is one Gospel, four accounts — the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — each written by a distinct person with a distinct voice, but all pointing to the same incarnate, crucified, and risen Messiah.

It also helps to remember that John was aware of the other three accounts. By the time he wrote, the Gospel of Mark may have been circulating for forty years. John had meditated on these stories with his brothers, taught them to his congregations, and finally sat down, in the late first century, to add his own voice — not to correct the others, but to give his churches his account of what they knew.

The Most Unique Eyewitness in the New Testament

John's Gospel sounds different because John himself was different. Every Gospel writer bore witness to Jesus, but no other writer of Scripture saw what John saw or stood where John stood. He walked with the incarnate Jesus, ate with him, heard his teaching firsthand, and famously laid his head against Jesus' chest at the Last Supper, close enough to hear his Lord's human heartbeat as Jesus delivered his final words to his closest friends.

Beyond the Twelve, John belonged to the inner circle of three. He was on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured and his glory was momentarily unsheathed. He was one of the few privileged to watch Jesus raise Jairus' daughter. Then, uniquely among the Gospel writers, he was present at the crucifixion — not at a distance, but at the foot of the cross, close enough that the dying Jesus spoke directly to him and entrusted his mother to his care. The episode invites a striking meditation: John beheld Jesus flanked on a mountain by Moses and Elijah in unearthly light, and later beheld Jesus flanked on a hill by two criminals in unearthly darkness. Two mountains, two flankings, one Lord. We can imagine these realities, but John remembered them.

John also saw the resurrected Jesus in his glorified body and watched him ascend to his throne. And then, decades later, exiled on the island of Patmos, he received the Revelation of Jesus Christ — a vision of the ascended, enthroned Lord surrounded by gems and light and living creatures. Whether John wrote his Gospel before or after Patmos is unclear, but the same mind that perceived the heavenly throne room is the mind shaping the Gospel of John. That explains a great deal. The "high Christology" critics point to is not an invention; it is the natural vocabulary of a man who had seen the high and exalted Jesus with his own eyes.

Finally, church tradition holds that John was the last surviving apostle, the only one who died without being martyred, though not for lack of persecution. This means the John we meet in the Gospel is not just the young man reclining against Jesus at supper, but John the Elder — the spiritual father of the churches of Asia Minor, whose epistles gush with tender phrases like "my little children," and whose passion is simply that his readers would see, know, and abide in Jesus.

Why John Wrote: That You May Believe and Have Life

Readers often ask why John wrote his Gospel, and John, helpfully, tells us directly. In John 20:31 he writes, "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." The statement does two things at once. It names what John wants his readers to see about Jesus, and it names what John wants Jesus to do in his readers. This is not a book written merely to transmit information or to win an argument. It is a book written to invite the reader into a relationship with the God who was seen, touched, heard, and leaned against.

That shapes how we read the word "believe." As important as doctrine is, John's vision of belief is not bare intellectual assent to a set of propositions. To believe, in John, is to participate. It is to be baptized into Jesus, to ingest his flesh and blood, to abide in him as a branch abides in the vine, to obey his command to love one another, to incarnate his words. Belief, for John, is union. When Jesus offers the famously offensive saying, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in yourselves," he does not soften it when his hearers object. He doubles down, because life itself has come in the God-man, and the only way to have life is to be joined to life.

This is why John can speak of salvation in such relational, mystical terms. According to John, salvation is being in Jesus and having Jesus in you. It is Eden restored, heaven and earth overlapped, the living water of the Holy Spirit welling up inside of those who trust him. As vital as blood is to a human body — remove it and life ends — so Jesus is to his people. He is their life. To have the Son is to have life. To be apart from the Son is to be apart from life itself. John's pastoral goal, written with the tenderness of a loving father, is that his readers would come and be joined to the one in whom there is no Death.

How to Read John: Patterns, Not Just Chronology

Readers often stumble in John because they bring the wrong questions to the text. Modern interpreters on both sides of the critical divide expend enormous energy trying to reconcile John's timelines with the Synoptics, either to discredit him or to defend him. But John is not emphasizing chronology. He is mostly sequential — Jesus still dies at the end — but his real interest lies in patterns, themes, repeated images, and developed motifs. The right question is not "how did Jesus get from one location to another in two days?" but "why has John placed these two stories next to each other?"

John's favorite number, unsurprisingly for the author of Revelation, is seven. The number of completeness, rooted in the seven days of creation, is woven all through his Gospel. The prologue opens with the creation echo "in the beginning," and if you count carefully through John 1–2, you find seven days leading up to the wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine. Genesis-to-Revelation in seven days: creation followed by a wedding. There are six stone jars at that wedding, which leaves readers wondering where the seventh is — and the seventh jar appears in John 4, left behind by the Samaritan woman as she runs to tell her village about the Messiah, drawing the Samaritans themselves into Jesus' new marital family. There are seven signs in the Gospel, and Jesus’ resurrection functions as an eighth: the day of new creation. There are seven "I am" statements ("I am the bread of life," "the light of the world," "the resurrection and the life," "the vine," "the good shepherd," "the gate," "the way, the truth, and the life") and seven absolute "I am he" statements in which Jesus takes the divine name of Yahweh onto his own lips.

Layered on top of the sevens are recurring themes that spin like a flywheel, each one touching the others: water, light, glory, bridegroom, love, new creation, new temple, life. Pull on one thread and the whole tapestry moves. The water at the wedding in Cana connects to the water Jesus offers the Samaritan woman, which connects to the living water of the Spirit promised at the Feast of Tabernacles, which connects to the temple waters of Ezekiel that heal the world, which connects to the baptismal waters in which believers are joined to Jesus, and so on. To read John well is to train the eye to catch these hyperlinks. The Old Testament is everywhere in John, usually unannounced. He does not always flag his allusions the way Matthew does; he expects readers who know their Hebrew Bible.

The Beloved Disciple and the God Who Is Love

For all of John's unique experiences, the most striking thing about his self-portrait is what he refuses to say about himself. He does not call himself the eyewitness of the transfiguration or the disciple at the cross or the revelator of Patmos, though all of these are true. He calls himself, again and again, "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Of all the ways he could have defined himself, the identity that rose to the top was the love Jesus had for him. That is a stunning pastoral model. Whoever you are, whatever you have seen, the truest thing about you is that Jesus loves you.

This is the Gospel John wants to hand his readers. As a spiritual father of the church, the last surviving apostle, the man who saw the glory of Jesus on a mountain and heard the voice of Jesus from a cross, he writes so that his spiritual children might know the same Jesus he knew. He is not handing down information for information's sake. He is inviting his readers into the life of God — the God who became flesh, dwelt among us, offered his body and blood, rose on the eighth day as the first fruits of new creation, ascended to his throne, poured out his Spirit, and now gives his life to all who receive him. This is the good news at the center of John's Gospel: life itself has come in the person of Jesus, and he is extending his own life to anyone who will abide in him. You do not have to earn it. You do not have to climb to him. You only have to receive the one who came down, attach yourself to him by faith and baptism and love, and discover that the God of life has made his home inside of you.

Next episode, David and Christine dive into the prologue of John — "In the beginning was the Word" — where the themes of light, darkness, new humanity, and the surprising placement of John the Baptist all begin to crash together in one of the most breathtaking openings in all of Scripture.

Transcript

David: [intro music] Well, welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We are starting a new book today, and I don't think Christine and I could be more excited. [laughs] We've had a lot of fun and joy walking through the Book of John in preparation for all of this, the Gospel of John. Christine, when you think about John's gospel, you're sitting there, like, tense with energy and joy. Why is John so special to you?

Christine: It's hard to know where to begin.

David: Yeah.

Christine: I love John for many, many reasons. In many ways, his book is so personal about Jesus, not that the other gospel writers aren't, but John really gives us insight into who Jesus is as God who is love, as the Son of God who became flesh. Yeah, I love the picture he paints of Jesus and the teachings that he relays about Jesus, and his relationship with Jesus, just him as a person, is so, I don't want to say enviable, but it's the kind that I want.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And so I return to John to just be with Jesus.

David: Yeah.

Christine: In many ways.

David: I think that is interesting to think about John uniquely as a gospel writer. The who of him is very interesting. Like, who was John? He calls himself the disciple Jesus loved. We see him popping up a few times in his gospel, one of which is so intimate with Jesus where he's laying his head on his chest, and you can just imagine him, you know, listening to Jesus' human heartbeat.

Christine: Yeah, as he relays his last words to his closest friends. I can't imagine a more intimate [laughs] experience.

David: Yeah. It's interesting to think about John, and John also from a, if you want to say, a canonical standpoint, is unique among the gospel, the gospel accounts that we have, and people have made big deals about this, [laughs] that-

Christine: Mm

David: ... oh, it, because it's so different, it has to be written so much later, or it can't be original, or it must not have been written by one of his original disciples because it sounds nothing like Matthew, Mark, Luke. And we're gonna explore a little bit of, not that we're here to address that issue exactly, but we are gonna explore a little bit of, like, why that's such a ludicrous false dichotomy. [laughs]

Christine: Yeah, I'm less familiar with these hangups that people have, so maybe you could shed as much light as is helpful on that because it has never bothered me or created a suspect-

David: Right

Christine: ... notion that, oh, because it's different, it's not another person.

David: Yeah.

Christine: 'Cause John is another person, and he's also the disciple who lived the longest-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and most likely wrote these later in his life, and even my writing looks nothing like it did-

David: Oh, gosh

Christine: ... even two years ago-

David: Right

Christine: ... let alone if I were to compare my writing decades down the road, so.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: I think-

Christine: I don't know

David: ... I, I don't want to platform these ideas more than they should be.

Christine: Okay.

David: But in case people have wondered these questions, you can at least see what we're in dialogue with as we talk about some of these things about who John is, why he wrote his book, how he writes, things like that, and how we have created, at least in the critical scholarly community, a false dichotomy between the historical accounts of the so-called Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John's more theological treatise, and it is, it's such a false dichotomy. And so people look at the idea that there's a seeming historicity to the literary style of the Synoptic Gospels. They seem to be written more clearly chronologically and with more touchpoints on cities, places, times, and then they also seem to bring in a broader story of, well, who was there and what was going on and the actions of others, whereas John will have these long discourses of Jesus that are full of imagery and very high, what people would call a high Christology, which I would then say is also a false dichotomy, that John doesn't create a high Christology, but instead there's high Christology, the highest Christology shared among all of the gospel writers. But it's things like this, and the, maybe the blunt way in which we see Christ's claims to being the Messiah, being the Son of God, even on the lips of the Pharisees, I believe it is, we see that their claim, oh, he's making himself equal with God because he's claiming to be his son. It's like, well, that's a very high Christology. And it's such a false dichotomy because John is making the same claims as every other gospel writer, but in a different way, but he's saying the same things about the same Jesus and making the same claims theologically about him as all the other Synoptics. But whereas you might get a historical story or a prophetic fulfillment or a type fulfillment as the son of David in Mark, and also the title Son of God, [laughs] and also the title the Messiah, all of these things collapse in on each other, even in the Synoptics, in such a way that it's undeniable what's being said about Jesus.

Christine: Yeah, it sounds like, I mean, you read the gospels, and all of them are showing that Jesus is God and are making that point very explicitly, sometimes very implicitly some other times-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... but which are nonetheless picked up by their audience. And John too is doing the same thing, only kind of like what you said, he might handhold a little more or explain a little more. He won't just rush-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... past the claim to deity that Jesus does. He says, oh, this is why they're mad, because he made himself equal-

David: Right

Christine: ... equal with God. But Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are doing the same thing too. In fact, Mark's gospel opens with the Gospel of Jesus-

David: Right

Christine: ... the Son of God. So-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... yeah, they all seem to be talking about the same theology-

David: They are

Christine: ... and the same person.

David: And you don't see these concerns about John early in church history.Because people understood the theological and Christological claims that Matthew, Mark, and Luke were making. What's interesting about this and why I'm just kinda laughing to myself is it's only later that these issues really start to populate in scholarly debate or criticism, and I wonder if it's because we've actually gotten so bad at reading the Bible that we don't see the theological [laughs] claims that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are making because we're not reading them on their own terms. But then in John, oh, it's just flat right there. He's making himself equal with God. The exact same points are being made when Jesus feeds the 5,000 in Mark.

Christine: Yeah.

David: He's saying that He is the manna in the wilderness. He is the Yahweh who gave bread to the people.

Christine: Yeah.

David: It's the same divinity claim-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... but just in a different genre.

Christine: Yeah. And when Jesus raises the dead in Luke, that is something only God can do.

David: Mm.

Christine: And what everyone would've noticed that Jesus did that on His own authority because He did not pray to God, beg God for an answer. He just said, "Young man, get up," and the man got up. That is very clearly God acting-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... because no one else has life in himself.

David: Right.

Christine: Everyone's life is derivative of God.

David: Yeah.

Christine: So if there's someone giving life to the dead, that has to be God.

David: Yeah.

Christine: So that's a very clear claim that Luke is making, and in other places, he makes it very plain that Jesus is also human. Jesus sweats blood. He sleeps. You see these elements of his humanity, but he's also equally claiming or showing that Jesus is divine as well.

David: Yeah, it's-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... interesting. I think what we're saying here at the beginning is if you've ever wondered why John is so different, one of the reasons is he's a different person.

Christine: Yeah.

David: He's not Matthew. He's not Mark. He's not Luke, and does, every Gospel author presents the same story about Jesus in their own way.

Christine: It's one gospel, four accounts.

David: Yeah, one gospel, four accounts. We don't have four gospels written by four people. We have one gospel written in four accounts by different people.

Christine: Yes, the gospel according to-

David: Right

Christine: ... so-and-so.

David: And the other thing is John was very aware of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These were accounts that were widespread and accessible to the church, used even in the liturgies and practices of the church, memorized by the church. And so later in John's life, maybe even into the, the mid to late 90s AD, he's still alive, [laughs] and these other accounts, you know, some people put Mark around 50, you know. And so John's living in a world where the Gospel of Mark might've been existent and circulated for 40 years.

Christine: That's a lot.

David: Which is a lot. And people are familiar with this. They've memorized and internalized these stories, and John's been meditating on them with his brothers and with the church and teaching them. He knows as an elder, as a teacher, as the beloved of Jesus, how else he wants to present his Lord and friend, Jesus, to his congregations. He's taking a different style.

Christine: Yeah, and you really get that with John's gospel, I think, is as much as he's showing the deep truths and beauty of who Jesus is, he's also inviting you to experience Him firsthand. For as, quote-unquote, "simple" as his writing is, it is just so deep and profound with-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... Jesus' words and truth.

David: Yeah, it is interesting the way he writes is also, you and I have talked about how it almost seems like he wants you to be him laying your head on Jesus' chest. [laughs] He wants you to be the beloved of Jesus. Yeah, like you said, he's giving you a firsthand account and wanting you to almost step in there and hear Jesus' words, be with Him, stay with Him, which is a theme we'll probably talk about and even maybe the whole reason why he wrote his book is to abide with Him and to be in Him.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And so before we jump to that, though, one thing that makes John's account unique is not only its literary style, its theological, or its approach to the same theological agenda to show people that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, but also John as a historical person is unique.

Christine: He is so cool. I really like John.

David: [laughs]

Christine: Again, I, yeah, this will probably slip out from me a lot, but he m- might be one of my favorite gospel writers, which I have it narrowed down to four, but John has a special place in my heart because of all the experiences he had of Jesus that are just, again, beyond words. And so for him to even at the end of his life put the ineffable into words for the love of Jesus and for the love of his own spiritual children, it's such an intimate invitation to experience Jesus.

David: Yeah, and so let's talk a little bit about the unique ways that John was an eyewitness to Jesus because we have other eyewitnesses to Jesus.

Christine: Yeah, yeah.

David: But there are some, some ways that John is set apart as an eyewitness, so let's unpack that. Go ahead.

Christine: Yeah. Well, I mean, John saw Jesus incarnate-

David: Yes

Christine: ... which is only true of a f- handful of people in the 1st century.

David: Right.

Christine: And that is so beautiful and profound. He ate with Jesus. He walked with Jesus, talked with Jesus, slept with Jesus, heard Him teach, and he had that firsthand experience of-

David: Yeah, I'm-

Christine: ... being with Jesus on the road.

David: Yeah, I'm thinking about how he opens his letter in 1 John, right? It's so much of that.

Christine: Yes.

David: "We declare to you what was from the beginning," which sounds like John 1.

Christine: It does.

David: "What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life. This life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it and declare it to you, the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us."What we have seen, what we have heard, we also declare to you so that you might have fellowship with us. And so-

Christine: It's so good

David: ... it's so emphasizing-

Christine: We have seen His glory.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah, which is tactile and tangible.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And-

David: And so John wasn't alone in that witnessing.

Christine: No.

David: And that's not our point here, but there are ways as we keep digging into who John was, that he is unique.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so let's keep going. So he, he spent time with Jesus incarnate.

Christine: Yes.

David: An eyewitness.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And, but beyond that, not only was he part of the 12, but he was a part of the three.

Christine: The inner circle.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yes. Yeah, which meant that he was privy to some other experiences that the 12 were not, 'cause he and James and Peter were with Jesus, for instance, when he raised Jairus's daughter.

David: Yeah.

Christine: They got to see him firsthand take a dead girl by the hand and raise her to life. They also got to see Jesus transfigured on the mountain, and saw His glory unsheathed for a time. Yeah.

David: Yeah. I mean, that's actually-

Christine: More-

David: ... something to double-click on.

Christine: Oh, so much.

David: So-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... number one, so much is there in, in the Biblical story. But trying to keep our meditations on John himself and that experience and what makes him unique as a gospel writer is not only, yeah, did he spend time with Jesus incarnate, but he actually was on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured and beheld His glory. And you wonder why when you read through John's gospel, you just see glory, glory, glory, glory, glory all over it. Not only 'cause it was something Jesus talked about and prayed about and taught and invited his followers into, [laughs] and wanted to reveal to them, but it was actually something that is part of John's eyewitness experience.

Christine: Yes. It's something he... Yeah, like you said, it was something Jesus wanted his followers to experience, and it's what John did get to experience-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... in so many different ways. Yes, he witnessed the transfiguration alongside two other disciples, but then he also was the only disciple uniquely to be right there at the cross of Jesus's crucifixion.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And-

David: Which that might surprise some people, so we should probably unpack that because out of the 12, what you're saying, and what I think we're saying, is the 11, at least in what we have recorded and what is preserved in church history, is the 11 had scattered at this point. Some of the women stayed. Some of His other followers stayed-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... and watched and, and mourned with Him on this path to the cross. But uniquely out of the 12, we know John was present at the crucifixion of Jesus because Jesus talks to John-

Christine: Yes

David: ... from the cross.

Christine: Literally from the cross. He is within earshot. He is there with Jesus' mother. He has a very special relationship with Jesus in that sense, that he literally followed Jesus to the cross.

David: Mm.

Christine: And just a little moment there that I find fascinating is it was, whether it's James and John or their mom, it's unclear depending on the gospel. That's beside the point, but they ask that Jesus seat them on His right and His left in His kingdom.

David: Right.

Christine: And the cross is Jesus bringing His kingdom. And so for John to stand there and look up at the cross with Jesus having two people crucified on either side, I just can't imagine what he would've been thinking.

David: Would've been thinking.

Christine: 'Cause his mother is there too, I think. Zebedee's wife-

David: Mm

Christine: ... and his mom might be there. I'm not sure, but we know that John is there and would've been aware of that request then. He is now like, "Oh."

David: Oh.

Christine: "That could be me."

David: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating to think... It almost feels, I don't know why it feels like heresy's the wrong word, but it just feels bristly and wrong to say no other writer of scripture saw Jesus on the cross.

Christine: Yeah, at least not at the foot.

David: At the foot. Not, yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: We don't know.

Christine: We don't-

David: Maybe w- someone was back and farther away.

Christine: Yeah.

David: But-

Christine: We don't know where Luke was or where Mark was.

David: Yeah. I guess the more true statement is no writer of scripture was closer to the cross-

Christine: Yes

David: ... than John.

Christine: No other w- no other writer of scripture had Jesus speak to from the cross. [laughs]

David: That's crazy.

Christine: John is very special.

David: Yeah. You wanna get close to Jesus, you can read John. [laughs] He was right there.

Christine: And again, the contrast and similarity, which again is something to meditate on, we can't unpack it, but just an invitation to meditate or reflect is John beholding Jesus in His transfiguration and beholding Jesus in His crucifixion. You know, he's flanked by two on either-

David: Whoa

Christine: ... either occasion. They're on a mountain. There is unearthly light in one. There is unearthly darkness in the other, and John is present for both and is with Jesus and hearing different things. First, like, "This is my chosen son." And then-

David: It's just crazy to think, like, we can sit here and have and will continue to meditate on the humility and love of Jesus. We have and will continue to think about the glory of His transfiguration and try to imagine it with our heart and mind, and we also have and will continue to meditate on His cross and His suffering and His sacrifice and His love and His forgiveness and compassion on the cross. And w- we can in our mind's eye and in our heart and with the help of the Spirit meditate beautifully on those two f- what seem to us to be polar opposite realities, that the glorified, fully God, [laughs] incarnate Jesus in all His splendor went to the lowest place as a criminal on a cross and suffered for His creation. We can imagine those things.

Christine: But we can't remember them.

David: We can't remember them.And our eyes did not see them

Christine: Yeah

David: ... our, like, physical eyes. John's physical eyes saw both of those realities.

Christine: It's wild.

David: That's wild.

Christine: It's so wild.

David: John's a unique gospel writer. That's the point we're making.

Christine: Very.

David: Okay, let's keep going. He spent time with Jesus incarnate, what we have seen, what we have heard. He saw Him transfigured, glorified. He saw Him crucified, the closest gospel writer, the closest writer of scripture to see the crucified Jesus. He also saw Him then glorified-

Christine: In His resurrected-

David: ... in His resurrected body.

Christine: Yes.

David: He beheld His resurrection-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... which many people did.

Christine: Which many people did, and He definitely looked different, 'cause they didn't always recognize Him.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And it's so interesting at the end of John's gospel the way he talks about the disciples not daring to ask, "Who are you?" 'cause Jesus clearly looks different, like, not like He did before, but they still know it's the Lord. I don't know what their eyes saw that was different, but it was Jesus in a different form, and yet glorified, and they knew it was Him-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... even though their eyes were like, "We should ask who He is, but we know it's Him."

David: Yeah.

Christine: So.

David: Oh, it's fascinating.

Christine: Yeah, so cool.

David: So he saw Christ resurrected glo-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... in His glorified body. He saw Christ ascended. He watched Him-

Christine: Go to His throne

David: ... the, yeah, go to His throne. He saw the God man who connected heaven and Earth go from Earth to Heaven-

Christine: Yes

David: ... and be seated in both realities simultaneously as King.

Christine: Yes.

David: Bah. [laughs] That's crazy.

Christine: Crazy. Yes. But drill into that ascended, 'cause [laughs]

David: It's crazy. Obviously I knew both of these realities, but I hadn't put them side by side, and it blew my mind the other day when we were talking about it, is John obviously, everyone, and if you don't, don't feel bad, you know, but it's a common thing that we know that John wrote Revelation.

Christine: Correct.

David: The Book of Revelation. The, and he was given a vision on the Island of Patmos when he was exiled there of what? Of Jesus. It's the revelation of Jesus Christ, and the first thing he sees and that he records in the Revelation is a vision of the ascended Jesus sitting on His throne, and there's all of... He's trying to describe what he's seeing and all of these vast images of different gems and metals and light and robes and, and-

Christine: Creatures

David: ... fire and creatures, and whatever he saw on... I don't know how similar what he saw on the Mount of Transfiguration was to what he saw in Revelation. That's an interesting meditation to think about. [laughs] But he uniquely, the only other person, maybe Stephen, Stephen the Martyr in Acts-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... looked up and saw Jesus-

Christine: Standing

David: ... standing, ready to receive Him. And, and we've, we've talked about that back in Acts. Paul talks about being caught up to the third heaven and having a vision. And so I'm not saying no other author of scripture has seen the ascended Jesus. But there is a unique revelation that was given to John that we have-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... in the Book of Revelation.

Christine: One that Jesus told him to write down.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah, and to send to churches in-

David: And-

Christine: ... Asia Minor

David: ... and so you wanna talk about a unique witness for a gospel writer to have, because it is probable, I was gonna say highly probable, but I don't know enough about the providence of everything and all the arguments to say highly probable. But it is probable that John either wrote the final version of his gospel or a version of it after his revelation on Patmos.

Christine: That could be, yeah. I don't-

David: I don't know. Again-

Christine: ... know the chronology of that, but yeah

David: ... again, doesn't really matter for the point we're trying to make.

Christine: No.

David: But when you read John, and you read it with an eye to this was the guy who saw and recorded the Book of Revelation.

Christine: Yes. Whether it was before or after, it's the same guy.

David: It's the same guy.

Christine: Yeah, and he saw Jesus ascended-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and as high priest, and the one who holds the keys of death and Hades.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yes.

David: Not to give any credit or credence to the high, the, "Oh, John was written later, and it has too high of a Christology," not to give any, like, base for their claims, 'cause it's baseless. But [laughs] he has a high Christology because he saw the high and exalted Christ. [laughs]

Christine: Yes, I think-

David: You know what I mean?

Christine: Yeah, I think what you're saying is it's not that John is doing something different from the other gospel writers

David: Right

Christine: ... John just has all these really unique experiences, sometimes unique to him-

David: That's right

Christine: ... sometimes to an inner circle, that he just has other things to say-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... also.

David: The Gospel of John is unique because the human John was unique.

Christine: Yes.

David: Is unique.

Christine: He had unique revelations of Jesus. All of the gospel writers are recording, you know, true and beautiful and theologically unplumbable depths of who Jesus is.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And people like Matthew and Mark, who's leaning heavily on Peter, are, you know, these are all eyewitnesses. And Luke as well, uh, did his homework, you know? [laughs]

David: Yeah.

Christine: He writes an orderly account because there are lots of gospels and eyewitnesses giving accounts of who Jesus is, and he's like, "I'm gonna put this together for you, Theophilus." But John is, yeah, speaking about the one who laid his head against Jesus-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... at the Last Supper, who saw Him transfigured, who saw Him crucified and heard the crucified Lord speak to him, who saw Him ascended from an earthly perspective, ascended from a heavenly perspective. I don't know if he saw Daniel while he was up there-

David: Yeah, right

Christine: ... but Daniel, he sees the same vision of, as Daniel in Daniel 7. It's just all a lot to unpack. And then also Jesus gives him a revelation while he's on Patmos. And so, which again, is also just unique.

David: Yeah.

Christine: If other people had that experience, it's not written down. It's not handed down to us.

David: Right.

Christine: But it's, it all goes to show that John has a lot to tell you about Jesus-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and wants to tell you everything.

David: I think that's so helpful just to say the Gospel of John is unique. While the revelation connection is fresh in our head, I just wanna get something out.When you read John, it can sound, and is in a sense, very simple. But we can miss some of the richness that's in it because we don't realize how soaked it is in theme, imagery, in Old Testament allusions. And I just remember something we said on the Revelation podcast, that there are, like, some people have counted more allusions to the Old Testament in Revelation than there are verses.

Christine: [laughs] That's not surprising.

David: And I think people are surprised by that, though, because you don't have, "And so to fulfill what God said to the prophet Isaiah, Jesus is-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... the lamb of God slain before the foundation of the world." Like, it's just like you don't have that in Revelation. You have images, pictures, little hyperlinks.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And you have to understand and know your Old Testament, your Bible, your Hebrew Bible, to find those things and pick up on them. The same is true with John's gospel, that John's gospel is unique because it doesn't always, it does often, but it doesn't always surface those Old Testament allusions or themes by flagging it like a Matthew does, where he's just like, "And this was to fulfill what was written."

Christine: Yeah.

David: John does that.

Christine: Yeah. Well, and Matthew's writing to different people.

David: He is.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And, 'cause Matthew is also unique. [laughs]

David: Oh, what do you know? And so I just find that very interesting and helpful when we read John to remember, let me read John as if he actually is the author of Revelation, because it, it tweaks my eye a little bit-

Christine: Hmm

David: ... to go, that guy, his brain worked differently [laughs] than mine, and I need to think through patterns and repetitions and imagery and themes, because that's how Jesus knew to reveal himself to John.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And like, "Oh, John, my, I know my beloved John. He'll pick up on all these images when I show him." And that's how he wrote his gospel too.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And that's another reason it's unique.

Christine: Yeah.

David: So I'm just saying, we're just, I'm compounding why John is unique. The other thing that makes John unique in his gospel and in his humanity is he was the last, church tradition holds he was the last apostle to be alive.

Christine: Yeah. He was the only one to die without being martyred, and that's not 'cause they didn't try.

David: Yeah.

Christine: It just never worked. [laughs] And so last resort was to ex- exile him onto Patmos, which Jesus met him there too, so heaven came to Patmos, and then he returned later and died presumably in Ephesus, where he still visited churches that he pastored in his old age.

David: Yeah.

Christine: So, yeah. But it's really cool.

David: What that gives us too is when we're reading John, I think it's a good exercise to not only have, okay, this is a unique eyewitness, this is the guy who saw Jesus ascended, in two different ways, but this is the disciple Jesus loved, who put his head on his chest, but also this is John the Elder.

Christine: Yeah.

David: This is John, the old, wise, fatherly man.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And you go read his epistles and they're just gushing with, "Oh, my little children."

Christine: Yeah. He's a spiritual grandpa.

David: He's a, f- he's a spiritual grandfather, and there's a tenderness and a passion with which he wants people to see and know and believe and abide in Jesus. You can feel the-

Christine: His affection just jumps out and grabs you

David: ... oh, he just wants you.

Christine: Yeah.

David: He wants you to believe. He wants you to, to stay fast and, and hold onto him. And so my confession here, and no one, I'm not projecting on anyone, this is my experience.

Christine: Hmm.

David: For the longest time when I read John, because the language was so simple, I read him almost like a little child.

Christine: Oh, really?

David: Like, oh, this is the... And not in a bad way, but like, oh, this is the sweet, innocent, young, more like, like my peer.

Christine: Hmm.

David: And, which is, oh, there's nothing necessarily wrong with that reading, but I would read Matthew and Mark and Luke as these older, historical sages who were-

Christine: That's so interesting

David: ... who were carefully reporting to me things.

Christine: Hmm.

David: But coming back through it and reading it with John the Elder in mind, I could just feel the grandfatherly compassion of an older brother wanting me to know something that he's been chewing on for so long.

Christine: That's so sweet.

David: Right?

Christine: Yeah. It's like, it's a way of bonding, it's a way of relaying wisdom, it's a way of sharing intimacy with another person, telling stories, and it's, what better than telling about Jesus?

David: Yeah.

Christine: And it's the love of Jesus that's oozing out of John all the time. It's that love that he has experienced, that he has touched, and he will, yeah, expound on love and who love is over and over again in multiple ways, and that's what he wants to convey. He wants to give you Jesus.

David: Yeah. And so that's a tiny bit, [laughs] maybe it didn't feel like a tiny bit, but it, it's a tiny bit of who John is as we know him through scripture. But let's talk a little bit about why he wrote the Gospel of John. We have to be careful when answering this question. We don't know why. We're not John. [laughs]

Christine: Yeah. It's a modern question-

David: It's a modern question

Christine: ... why, but John does give an answer to that question.

David: He does.

Christine: So-

David: Which is why we feel comfortable answering it in some way.

Christine: Yes. Yes. He's-

David: But we're gonna let John answer it.

Christine: Yes.

David: And so John 20:31 says this. "But these are written," these being all the stories I've chosen from Jesus's life and his teachings and his words and his actions to, to relay to you, "these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."

Christine: That's so good. And-

David: What jumps out to you there?

Christine: Well, the context of that is talking about all the many things that Jesus had done, the countless things. He did many other things too, and boy, would we wish to know. But John said that, "I had to be selective."

David: Yeah.

Christine: "But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God."And that by believing you may have life in his name. So he is here to show you Jesus, and here for you to receive Jesus and have life in him.

David: Hmm.

Christine: And I love that. It's such a two-way purpose for a book. It's not, and it's not to hand down teaching for teaching's sake. He's not passing on information. He's wanting to invite you into a relationship.

David: That's right.

Christine: And a relationship with God, no less, God who he saw.

David: Yeah.

Christine: God in the flesh, God who he leaned against, God who he saw bow his head and then die, and God who he saw glorified. [laughs]

David: Yeah.

Christine: This is the God that he wants to invite you into, and this is why he chose to write down the things he chose to write.

David: Yeah, I think it's really important to emphasize here that John's purpose is not just academically polemic in that he's not trying to intellectually or argumentatively prove that Jesus is the Old Testament Messiah, and that you might know that as a historical fact. His gospel's not less than that.

Christine: No.

David: Like, but it is way more than that.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And that's what I think is one, one thing you're saying, is that, yes, in any of the gospels, we can see a very sharp, aimed, you could call it polemic, that people need to read and go, "Oh, this historical Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah, is God in the flesh as the Son of God, has done these things," right? There is information. There is history. There is boots on the ground, incarnate things that have occurred. But what he is saying here in believe and have life in his name, is he's not saying, "I want you to know these facts." And he's not even saying, "I want you to agree to these facts. I want you to confess a doctrinal statement. I want you to adhere to Trinitarian theology." Like, these are not his ultimate goal. His ultimate goal, like you were emphasizing, is relationship. It is abiding. It is that you might have life in his name. I think you could, you could argue that John's, quote unquote, "soteriology," his study of how we are saved by Jesus-

Christine: I remember you telling me-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... about this, yeah

David: ... is that you might have his life in you.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And that your life might be in him. That is how he talks about it consistently-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... throughout his gospel, is that he is laying down his life so that we can join him in it.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so he is going to heaven so that we might be with him where he is going. He is laying down his body as a sacrifice so that we might ingest his body and blood, his life. He is divine, so we might abide in him.

Christine: Yes.

David: And on and on it goes that Jesus has come to share his life with us, and that it is by being with and in and indwelt by, that's the two-way street again in a different way-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... that we are in him, and he is in us. Does that sound like John? That's because that's his point.

Christine: Yes.

David: And I think that is John's purpose-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... is to show that life itself has come in the God man, Jesus, so that men might be joined to God and have life in themselves as a gift of God because God has brought himself into humanity so that humanity might bring themselves into God, and that we might have life, meaning we might have the God of life in us, and that by having in him, the way John talks about it, is even when you die, you have life.

Christine: Yeah, 'cause you're joined to-

David: 'Cause you're joined-

Christine: ... life itself

David: ... to life itself.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so I think that is John's why, is to show that life itself has come. Join yourself to that life.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

Christine: I remember you telling me, and it was such a beautiful and simple way of putting it, that if we're to bring a question to John's gospel, which there are more and less helpful [laughs] questions-

David: Yes

Christine: ... to do that with, with a biblical text, but I like the questions, according to John, what is salvation?

David: Yeah.

Christine: That's a cool way of, you know, engaging the text, not an end-all be-all, but I loved how you said, according to John, salvation is be in Christ.

David: Yes.

Christine: It's abiding.

David: Yes.

Christine: And that's not to the exclusion of other definitions-

David: No

Christine: ... of salvation, but how John talks about salvation is abide in Christ and let Christ abide in you, like the branch in the vine, like food in the body, like a body immersed in baptism in water. It's this joining and becoming one and becoming like that brings you life because when you're joined to life, you have life in you.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And it seems so simple. It's like, what are we missing? And it's, it's as profound as it is simple, and that's what we get to-

David: Hmm

Christine: ... chew on our whole lives is I'll never exhaust what John is telling me about how to abide, and I want to abide more.

David: Yeah. He who has the Son has life.

Christine: Yeah, I'll never get to the end of that. [laughs]

David: No. You know, he talks about living waters welling up in you, which is a picture of his Holy Spirit.

Christine: It's Eden.

David: It's, yeah, and Eden itself-

Christine: God's presence

David: ... life itself, being with God in a heaven and earth overlapped existence-

Christine: Yes

David: ... is the point of Jesus' coming.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so it's just fascinating and, and it's in John that we get the offensive statement, "Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in yourself."

Christine: Yeah.

David: You have to ingest the life of Jesus into yourself. And so John is just laser focused on this. [laughs]

Christine: Yeah.

David: And-

Christine: Well, and the others are like, "What are you saying?" And instead of, like that's a simple statement, but that also implies something that sounds almost cannibalistic.

David: Right.

Christine: And so listeners of Jesus are like, "What are you on about?" And Jesus doesn't say, "Oh, you misunderstood me. I didn't mean literally." He doubles down. [laughs]

David: Right, yeah.

Christine: He's like, "No, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you."

David: Yeah.

Christine: And people are like, "This is a hard teaching." [laughs]

David: Yeah, but you-

Christine: "What do we do?"

David: ... need the life of Jesus in you, like, that's his whole point.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Thinking about all of that. Oh, and thinking about, I mean, he goes a lot on baptism, John does.

Christine: Oh, yeah.

David: He spends a lot of time talking about baptism, referencing it-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... alluding to it. All that-

Christine: Another way of becoming one.

David: Another, and, and all of that is another way of becoming one, where you are united with Christ in baptism, where the Holy Spirit descended and abided on Jesus. We now meet Jesus in those same waters, and His spirit abides and remains with us.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so there's so much there. So that's a, that's a fun challenge for all of you to go read John and just see how often he invites you to have Jesus's life in yourself and to abide and remain in his life. And I think you'll see it's just everywhere. It's really beautiful. So going back to why did John write this book? And in hearing John's own words one last time here, "These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." And, and there, let me... Sorry, let me pause there real quick and say the Messiah. He wa- He write these things to believe that, so that you might believe that Jesus is the promised human leader in- that Israel needs to, to establish the kingdom, to rescue them from their enemies, to inaugurate the rule and reign and presence of God on Earth. He is the Christ, and He's also the Son of God, which rightfully the Pharisees say that makes Him equal with God. Yes. He is the God king come to the world, and He is bringing heaven and earth together, bringing the kingdom of God to earth, overlapping heaven and earth again to create a new Eden. And by believing that, and when we say by believing, we, we talked about this earlier, we don't just mean intellectual ascent.

Christine: No, it's participating-

David: That's right

Christine: ... in that reality.

David: That's right, by participating in that reality through all kinds of things.

Christine: Baptism.

David: Baptism-

Christine: Or supper

David: ... ingesting [laughs] his life into yourself, remaining and abiding in him. I mean, I... You could also, you could also say by loving others. I mean, he, he talks about that a lot. Um-

Christine: Yeah, in his letters especially-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... but also in Jesus's last discourse.

David: That's right.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Yeah. He who o- obey my commands, and he who obey my, obeys my commands abides in me. What is my command? That you love one another.

Christine: Yes.

David: So another way we abide in Jesus is by doing the works of Jesus and laying down our lives like He laid down His life.

Christine: Incarnating His words.

David: Incarnating His words. And so that's what John means by believe. That could be a whole other episode is what is John's definition of believe, but that by believing, by participating in the king God, Jesus, [laughs] by participating in His existence as God become flesh, that you might have life in yourself by being in Him and having Him in yourself. Like, that's John's goal-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... of writing.

Christine: It's beautiful. It's so loving. It's what you would want your pastor to want for you.

David: Yeah. [laughs]

Christine: And it's clear picture of what God wants for you. He's a God of the living. He's a God of life. He has come to save lives. He's come to bring life. That's what He did at the beginning of creation. That's why creation even exists. And it's just beautiful that that message hasn't changed, and that's why Jesus came, because I want you to have life in you.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And, uh, the only way to do that is to attach yourself to life. And-

David: Right

Christine: ... I am the life.

David: Yeah.

Christine: So [laughs] come and be a part of me.

David: Yeah, as mystical as it all sounds, it's... We're very familiar with the idea that if you take my blood out of my body, I will cease to live.

Christine: Yeah.

David: I have to have life running through me.

Christine: Yeah.

David: It-

Christine: That's the liquid essence-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... of who you are, of your life.

David: Right.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Bible understood that.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: Life is in the blood.

Christine: Yep.

David: And when we join Jesus and literally take Himself into us, when we lay our lives down in the waters of baptism and raise up into new life with Him, when we abide in Him through the Spirit, then incarnate Him to the world, we are having His lifeblood-

Christine: You're just getting me-

David: ... pump through us

Christine: ... very excited. [laughs]

David: Well, good. I'm getting, I'm getting excited.

Christine: You are what you eat.

David: You are what you eat. [laughs] Yeah. So anyway-

Christine: Um-

David: ... that is a little bit of the why. So we've talked about the who, John, unique, eyewitness, the elder, the writer of Revelation. [laughs] We've talked about the, the why, that you might have life by participating in who Jesus is as the God king.

Christine: And can I just-

David: Yes

Christine: ... as note there, we just talked about all the ways that John is unique, and it just hits anew how John chooses to define himself, again, with that Christ-like deference and humility. He doesn't call himself the disciple who was at Jesus' cross. He doesn't call himself the revelator. He doesn't call himself the witness of the transfigured Lord, even though all of those are true, and it's right to say that John is those things.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: But he personally identifies himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved.

David: Yeah.

Christine: All these experiences aside, how does he interpret that? Jesus loves me.

David: Yeah. Oh-

Christine: He's shown himself to me.

David: Oh, to base my identity in that.

Christine: Yes.

David: Hey, who are you? [laughs]

Christine: Jesus' beloved.

David: I'm the one Jesus loved. Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Oh, man. So yeah, that's the who, the, the bit of the why. The how John is written is a really interesting concept. We've talked a little bit about it in that it's different but also the same. There's a false dichotomy we've placed between John and the Synoptic Gospels. But we would also have to be blind to be like, "Oh, it's not unique literarily." Yes, it is.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: It absolutely is.

Christine: Yeah.

David: It's not unique theologically-

Christine: No

David: ... but it's unique literarily, and that's okay.So how is John structured is, is kind of the next question. And Christine and I [laughs] kind of went around a few, a, a little bit here because like a lot of different things in Biblical studies, there are as many opinions as there are authors for how to organize a book of the Bible. And so you can read a whole bunch of different commentaries and, and different ways that people have tried to bring structure to John's gospel, and they're helpful to different degrees. But as we talked about how to help ourselves and all of you listening, how to think about the structure of John, none of them really resonated with us on like, "Oh, there it is. That's really the one that's helpful." 'Cause there's ways to talk about, like, we have a prologue, and then you have the book of the signs, and then you have the, the final teachings of Jesus leading to his crucifixion. Like, you have, okay, that's a general f- frame for the book, but John is written in such a patterned, thematic, Hebrew mind way [laughs] that it's more helpful to just recognize less even how John is written and more how you as a reader could come and read John. And I think that is by recognizing patterns and themes and recurring ideas and developed motifs, rather than coming in and go, "Okay, this happened first, and then this happened second, and then this happened third."

Christine: Yeah.

David: Sure, but, like, maybe.

Christine: Yeah. John is not emphasizing chronology in his account.

David: That's a cleaner way to say it. Yeah.

Christine: He's... It's not that he's not being chronological, but he's not always chronological-

David: Right

Christine: ... any more than other writers are, although they might be closer. But yeah, Jesus dies at the end of-

David: Right

Christine: ... you know, at, of the account, so yeah, he's mostly chronological.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And you get, you know, the Last Supper stuff, but he's also making points with his patterns. And you can talk about his favorite number later, [laughs] but-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... it's the images that he wants you to notice. It's the patterns and the illusions that he wants you to notice, not necessarily chronological sequence.

David: Yeah. Yeah, when I read modern commentaries about John, or really about any gospel author, the leaps and bounds they go to on both sides of the critical divide to try to make sense of how Jesus gets from one place to another in these gospel accounts is maddening.

Christine: Oh, really?

David: On the critical side, people go, "There's no way he could've gotten from here to here the next day or in two days, and so therefore Bible is untrustworthy."

Christine: The text isn't even-

David: I know

Christine: ... engaging that. [laughs]

David: On the... But then on the, instead of just saying what we're gonna say and, and, and go like, this is not what they're trying to say with days or locations or chronology. This is not... These are the wrong questions. You're importing 21st century modern historical presuppositions upon John. And so instead of just saying that, modern commentators on the more conservative side of the critical divide will try to explain how that actually is possible, how he could have ridden on a certain donkey or gotten there, and they do math, and they explain w- even what the Jewish conception of a day is. And-

Christine: Oh, dear

David: ... and it's like, this is not how to read John [laughs] or any-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... gospel author. Instead, what we need to do, like Christine was saying, is, is follow John's logic and not try to import your own upon it, and try to see what are the themes he's developing. Why is he placing these stories next to each other? Not, how could these stories historically have been next to each other? That's the wrong question. Why is John placing them next to each other? What is he wanting me to see in their position? And so anyway, that's a bit of a helpful note on how to read John.

Christine: Yeah. And I'm sure those responses to critiques that are trying to undermine the validity of the Bible are well-intentioned. It's like-

David: Very well-intentioned

Christine: ... no, you need... Look, this is credible, and this is trustworthy, and this is believable. It, it comes from, I'm assuming, [laughs] a very deep love for God's Word.

David: Definitely.

Christine: And at the same time, we also can't help but have, you know, not really know the waters we swim in.

David: Right.

Christine: And it can be easy to forget with how available John is that John is not talking to us.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And-

David: He's written for us

Christine: ... he's, yeah, he wrote this for us, but he's, we're not his first audience.

David: Right.

Christine: And so we need to do the work of understanding how John is writing-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and why he is writing.

David: And so as a quick exercise for us to, to show that to you, and, and one way to think about John as you read him and the points he's making, we're gonna talk about John's f- favorite number briefly, which is, uh-

Christine: I think it's your favorite number, too

David: ... it, it is my favorite number, yes, but for a silly reason. Do I, have I ever told you the reason why it's my favorite number?

Christine: 'Cause you are that?

David: No.

Christine: Oh, okay. Then I-

David: No, it's a very silly reason. There's nothing Christian or spiritual or good about this. I was in, somewhere in elementary school, and I was in, like, a Bible class. That's the only spiritual part of this, is that I was at church. And there was a raffle, like a drawing for candy, and you had to pick a number.

Christine: I've never heard this before.

David: And they were gonna draw a number, and that number got the candy. And I picked seven, and I won, and I was so elated. I was like, "Then that's my favorite number forever."

Christine: Oh, my goodness.

David: Because I won candy-

Christine: That is-

David: ... with the number seven. For much better reasons-

Christine: That's adorable

David: ... this is also John's favorite number. [laughs] His is rooted in the, uh, first part of the Bible where God makes the world in seven days, and it's the picture of creation, of completeness.And he's often setting up seven so that we are looking for the eighth to find new creation. And so seven is all throughout John, which if you've spent any time in Revelation-

Christine: There-

David: He loves sevens

Christine: ... there are so many sevens in Revelation.

David: And I just love the fact, I don't know if he came to love sevens because he's a Jew and all Jews love sevens and finding sevens because of their story, or if he was uniquely obsessed with sevens and Jesus knew that about him, and so that's why he revealed Revelation to him the way that he did, which is really sweet. Or if he came to love sevens after Revelation, he's like, "There's sevens everywhere." Who knows? John loves sevens.

Christine: Yes. He processes in sevens.

David: He processes in sevens. And so you get the beginning of his gospel, and if you walk through the days, this is again talking to how to read John not as a Western 21st century historical critic, but as in John's own terms, is that in John one to two, he sets up seven days.

Christine: He does, which is very... I mean, you'll cue into what John is doing even in just reading the first sentence or the first phrase of his gospel.

David: Right.

Christine: Because he-

David: Yeah, in the beginning was the word.

Christine: Yes.

David: This is-

Christine: That is creation language

David: ... Genesis 1:1.

Christine: We are in creation.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so John's saying w- he's starting with the first day of seven.

Christine: Yes.

David: And then we trace, and you see the next day, and even as we go into Cana, the wedding of Cana, on the third day, he adds in three days.

Christine: Yes.

David: And if you just add them all up, you get seven days.

Christine: Yeah, so verse one in chapter one is the first day, in the beginning. And then in verse 29, we see the next day, John saw Jesus, so that's day two. And then in verse 35 is the next day, John was there again, so we're on day three. And then in verse 43, the next day, Jesus decided to leave, and so there are different events, so that's day four. And then chapter two verse one is on the third day, which four days plus three would be-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... day seven. And I think there's, there's a lot more significance to why those last three days are grouped together. But you see what John is doing with in the beginning, we have creation language, and then the end of seven days, we get a wedding.

David: Yeah.

Christine: That spans Genesis to Revelation even, which-

David: That's right

Christine: ... yeah, which also is what John writes.

David: Yeah. And so you're like, "Okay, I should be paying attention to sevens and creation and wedding metaphors," and so n- now you're starting to read John on his own terms. And so you start looking for that pattern, and you notice that at the wedding, there's six jars for ritual cleansing.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: Well, where's the seventh one? And you find it where it's this only other time that this word in Greek is in the New Testament even.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And you find it, it's the same jar that the woman at the well in Samaria leaves when she goes and tells people all about Jesus.

Christine: Mm-hmm. The woman has the seventh jar.

David: The woman has the seventh jar, and Jesus is bringing even the Samaritans into his new marital family. And so you have a wedding, you have seven again. And so you just, and this is how John works, and he's connecting new creation to the waters of his Holy Spirit, to the wedding that he's going to have when he joins himself to his people, and he's just joining all of these ideas together. And if you're looking, oh, chronologically and you're separating the stories and trying to understand them on their own terms or in isolation as islands from each other, you're gonna miss what he's doing. And so there's seven jars. There's seven signs.

Christine: Seven signs.

David: Throughout John, and there might be eight, but the eighth is Jesus's resurrection.

Christine: Yeah, new creation.

David: Yeah.

Christine: So that, we are jumping into the book theme, so one big one is just seven. Another one, as we've talked about, is new creation.

David: Yep.

Christine: And a new creation is the eighth day, 'cause that's the beginning of a new seven.

David: That's right.

Christine: And so, and that is baked into the Torah.

David: Yeah.

Christine: A child is circumcised on the eighth day, which implies, okay, you leave old creation behind, and you begin a new creation. You are a new creation on that day. And so that is, and then also Jesus, he is raised on the eighth day, and so that's the day of new creation.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: He's the first fruits of the new creation, which is another theme. And then so is water, so is glory. You talked about bridegroom is a big one for John.

David: Yep.

Christine: And love is all throughout the new command that's new but not new [laughs] um, in his epistle, Jesus gives in, in his last kind of farewell to his disciples. So there are lots and lots of themes.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And it's not like you said, we need to kind of see it in the whole of John's gospel because we have numbers, too, that were put in, chapters-

David: Right

Christine: ... and verse numbers, which are extremely helpful. John didn't put them there.

David: Right.

Christine: So he might be waiting to show you a seventh something in what we have made another chapter example, the woman at the well-

David: That's right

Christine: ... bringing the seventh jar. And if you are like, "Okay, I'm done with my reading for the day because I've read three chapters in John or two chapters in John-"

David: Yeah

Christine: ... you might think, "Oh, the story is closed. New story begins in chapter three."

David: Helpful, yeah.

Christine: Not the case-

David: That's not the case

Christine: ... for John.

David: Right.

Christine: Again, those chapter breaks are helpful, but they are a very recent-

David: Mm

Christine: ... thing, and they are just giving you a helpful way to navigate the, the text by giving each text a verse address, as it were. So yeah, all that to say, the numbers that John is looking for will be what he shows in his-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... text. So.

David: Yeah. Seven days, seven jars, seven signs. There's seven I am statements.

Christine: Yes.

David: Like, I am the resurrection and the life, I'm the light of the world, right? Yeah.

Christine: Yes.

David: Yeah. I am the-

Christine: I am the vine

David: ... vine, I'm the good shepherd, I'm the gate.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Uh-

Christine: I'm the resurrection.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah. And then there's seven I am he statements.

David: Yes.

Christine: Like, I am Yahweh, which-

David: Yeah, ego eimi-

Christine: Yes

David: ... I think in Greek, yeah.

Christine: Yes. He says that in the garden. He says that-A few times in his upper room discourse.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: He says it, "Before Abraham was born, I am."

David: I am.

Christine: Yeah. It's really cool. He says it to the woman at the well, "I am he who's speaking to you."

David: Mm.

Christine: So it's beautiful. So again, those are very explicit claims to divinity. He's, Jesus is saying, "I am Yahweh-

David: Right

Christine: ... who created the world." And for a human being who you can see, handle, touch, to make that claim does take a lot of faith [laughs]-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... um, and belief in that, so which is what we said was the purpose of John writing this. It's-

David: Yes, I'm writing this so you might believe that He is the Messiah-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... the Son of God.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And that in believing, you might have life.

Christine: It's so, so good.

David: Yeah. And so I mean, I think we've made the point here that John's Gospel's unique because John's unique. He has a unique and focused reason for writing his text that he gives us-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... which is that we might believe and have life.

Christine: Yeah.

David: He writes his gospel in a way that is unique, but also very familiar to his original readers. They know to look for patterns. That's how they memorize. That's how they process. That's, that's how they organize things in their minds, and-

Christine: Unique style, not unique theology.

David: Exactly. And then just as advice to you Bible readers going into John, coming at it on his own terms and letting him take you on a journey, finding the sevens, finding the repeated themes, like tracing water, tracing bridegroom, tracing life, tracing light, tracing love, tracing-

Christine: They're all connected

David: ... new creation, and seeing how they all, yeah, just stack on each other. We like to, me and Christine have been talking about John as a flywheel, that when it spins, it starts to just touch everything else. And as soon as you see water, like in the woman at the well, you're like, "Okay, there's water. Oh, water that he turned into wine at the wedding, and the water of the Holy Spirit that will then go fill the people and make them new creations. New creation, that's the new... But also, oh, water came out of the temple in Ezekiel and healed the whole world. New temple's a big theme for John. And you-

Christine: New creation, the light of the world. Jesus is the light of the world when he talks about-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... yeah.

David: They just all, and that happens over and over and o- more than seven times [laughs] in John. It happens everywhere. And so I think that's a fun, uh, and helpful way to engage John on his own terms. And the other thing just to, to note too is, uh, I just wanna bring it back up. We talked about it a bit when we mentioned that, hey, guys, remember, this is the same person who wrote Revelation.

Christine: Yeah.

David: That if you're looking for the same formula of a synoptic gospel to flag, hey, this is Old Testament, pay attention, or something like that, John, almost every line, almost every story is dripping [laughs] with Old Testament. You know, you can, you, you, you think about even chapter five, and whenever Jesus heals the man at the pool of, uh, Bethsaida, that he, he names it. He's 38 years old.

Christine: Hmm.

David: And w- this is important because he's not 40 yet, and 40 in Israel is the time of a completed journey to get into the promised land or to finish a season of waiting.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And-

Christine: It's preparatory

David: ... it's preparatory, and Jesus interrupts his preparation, where he's been waiting at this other place to find salvation and healing and rescue from another place. And J- and, and I'm not making this up, like, the, the church fathers, that's how they interpreted this, that he interrupts that to say, "I'm the one who's going to finish the time of your preparation and get you to where you're going."

Christine: So beautiful.

David: And so these little things that we might see as details, six jars, right?

Christine: Find the seventh jar.

David: Find the seventh jar. So it's just so much fun to read, and so I just would, I would equip you in, in saying read John with the same eye to Old Testament allusions and themes and inferences as you might read Revelation. Different genre of, of literature. I don't wanna confuse us, but it is the same author, and he does think in similar patterns.

Christine: Yes, and he wants you to see Jesus-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... in everything that he writes. He is, and we don't, correct me if you found something else. I haven't found an occasion for John's-

David: I haven't either

Christine: ... Gospel, so even just, I mean, we know that, yeah, there's probably false teaching going around, and John talks about that in his epistle-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... a lot, and with, you know, enduring, persevering, and things like that. And we, we know a lot of the epistles, even not written by John, were, you know, occasioned by conflict in the church, problem with false teachers, things like that, persecution. We don't know what occasion prompted John to write his gospel, but his purpose, as we mentioned earlier, is that you see and experience Jesus and believe in him and have life. Like-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... if we even just come to that, whether it's John's Gospel or Revelation, if we come critically, we will miss the loving, grandfatherly desire of the author himself, which is that you might have life. So yeah, come to John's gospel knowing that John wants to show you life.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And sit under how he talks, and learn how this grandfather of the church [laughs] tells stories, so that you can learn his style and see what he's trying to help you pick up, especially as he's got the Old Testament in his mind and is wanting to highlight ways in which Jesus fulfills those Old Testament patterns and images. Yeah, it's cool. But John wants you to come and have life, so open John's gospel and come on the adventure.

David: Yeah, amen to that. I just wanna invite everybody, if you have questions or meditations or something that you want to process with us on the podcast about John or anything else we've talked about, we now have a way that you can do that. You can go to speakpipe.com/spokengospel and submit your actual audio recordings of your questions for us or something that you'd like us to share that you're seeing in, in the Gospel of John. With us, we can play your recording on the air and answer your question. So please, if you have that, go to speakpipe.com/spokengospel and submit your question. We are real excited, as you can tell, to continue talking with you all about the Gospel of John. On the next episode, we are going to jump into the prologue of John. In the beginning was the Word.

Christine: Oh.

David: The Word became flesh, dwelt among us. It's gonna be hopefully beautiful. It's been beautiful to us, and we can't wait to just sit with those things and, and explore them with you. A lot of the themes that we've talked about of new humanity and, and light and dark all come crashing in, and, and, and even getting set up here in that prologue, and even seeing how John the Baptist is connected with being plopped right in the middle of such a earth-shattering prologue. It's, it's cool to see how it all connects. So thank you guys for listening today. Thank you for joining us, and we will see you next time in John 1.

Christine: [outro music] Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel creates short films, devotionals, and podcasts like this one. Everything we make is free because of generous supporters like you. To see our resources, visit spokengospel.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. See you next time. [outro music]

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One Gospel, Four Accounts: Why John Invites You Into the Life of Jesus

Show Notes

One Gospel in Four Voices, Not Four Different Gospels

The Most Unique Eyewitness in the New Testament

Why John Wrote: That You May Believe and Have Life

How to Read John: Patterns, Not Just Chronology

The Beloved Disciple and the God Who Is Love

Related Resources

Introduction to John

View our devotional on John 1:1-34

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