We have found that the later years of John were passed in Asia Minor and principally at Ephesus. Irenæus, who had such excellent sources of information and who was himself educated in the same region by a disciple of John, declares that the Gospel was written at Ephesus; with him agree Jerome and later writers. Irenæus also states that it was the latest written of the Gospels, and this agrees with judgment of all commentators. It was therefore written after the departure of the Apostle to this portion of the world, and there can be little doubt that its place of composition was the great metropolis of this portion of the world, and for along period after the fall of Jerusalem, the chief center of Christianity. "After the destruction of Jerusalem Ephesus became the center of Christian life in the East. Even Antioch, the original source of missions to the Gentiles, and the future metropolis of the Christian patriarch, appears for a time less conspicuous in the obscurity of early church history than Ephesus, to which Paul inscribed his Epistle, and in which John found a dwelling place and a tomb. This half Greek, half Oriental city, visited by ships from all parts of the Mediterranean, and united by great roads with the markets of the interior, was the common meeting place of various characters and classes of men."--Conybeare and Howson.
Of the date we can have no certain knowledge. There are internal evidences
that would refer it to the last quarter of the first century. It has been held
by some critics that it is the last composition of the New Testament, but I
think it contains internal evidence that it was composed before Revelation,
while the latter seems in its final words to close the sacred canon. In addition,
the voice of the early church agrees that the Gospel had the earlier date. It
was almost certainly composed between A. D. 75 and A. D. 90. A vague
tradition that it was written during the exile to Patmos has no authority.
Alford fixes the date between A. D. 70 and 85; Macdonald at A. D. 86 or 86;
Godet between A. D. 80 and 90; Tholuck at not far from A. D. 100.
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The last record made of the Life and Words of our Lord is contained in the Fourth Gospel. The only survivor of the band that had attended his footsteps, heard his words, beheld his life, and been a witness of his resurrection, was John. The consciousness that he was closing the record, giving the last witness, and paying the last tribute to the Master which would come from a personal witness, must have produced a profound impression upon John when he undertook the task of outlining the ministry of Christ. Apart from all promptings of the Spirit, which would bring, all things to remembrance, he would be moved by his love and reverence for the Savior to give the truest possible revelation of his heart, life and majesty.
That this consciousness was ever present is manifest from the first to the last line of the Gospel. The last is the deepest, the highest, the most tender and loving, the most spiritual and the best of all the Gospels. Origen calls it "the crown of all the Gospels." Dr. Schaff pronounces it the most influential work of literature that was ever given to the world. There can be no doubt that John, with the exception of Paul, is the greatest human force that has appeared in Church history, and it may be regarded certain that no single book of the Bible has exerted as profound and far-reaching an influence as the Gospel of John. Nor is it difficult to account for this. He not only wrote after all the other apostles had passed from earth; after Jerusalem had fallen, the Jewish nation scattered, the church separated from the synagogue, the Jewish and Gentile Christians moulded into one, and the Jews regarded by even Jewish converts as an alien people, but he was a member of the apostolic band; one, too, of the sacred inner circle who were permitted to look into the very heart of Christ. Nay, more, of these three he was the "beloved apostle," the one who leaned on the bosom of the Lord, who spoke with him as a confidential friend, and who had charge of the mother of Christ after the tragedy of the cross. Surely there never was anyone else who enjoyed such precious advantages or who so nobly used them.
The appreciative reader is struck with the difference between John and
the other Evangelists as soon as he reads the first sentence. He is conscious
that a loftier and sweeter key has been struck. He has entered the Holy of
Holies of the New Testament. He is in the presence of the Divine. It is
not the tender, helpless Babe of Bethlehem, hanging on the bosom of an
earthly mother, that meets him at the threshold, but the Incarnate Word,
the Word who was in the beginning with God and is God. Yet while the
Lord first appears clothed with Divine majesty, and though no one else has
so exalted his matchless glory, yet, on the other hand, no one else has so
lifted the veil from the humanity of the Master, revealed his heart and the
tenderness of his soul in the intimacy of his private life. It is John who
takes us within the sacred circle and allows us to sit at the Master's feet
and listen to his "table talk" with his own beloved disciples. While we
have combined, such exalted revelations of the "One sent by the Father," on
the one hand, and such near views of the loving Brother, upon the other,
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I. It is the Gospel of the Incarnation. The emphasis is upon the grand
truth that Christ is the Word made flesh, the One sent from the Father,
the Bread of Life come down from heaven, the One who hath life in himself
and is therefore the Life of men, the Vine from whence the branches
draw their life, the Light that cometh into the world, the I AM, the Son
of God. John expressly disclaims having recorded all the words and deeds
of the Lord, and assures us that he had selected from almost infinite resources.
He has omitted much that is recorded in the other Gospels; he
has added five miracles that they omitted and a series of discourses to which
they hardly alluded, but a study of his material will show that the leading
thought has been its bearing upon the oneness of Christ with the Father.
We search in vain for many things found in the other Evangelists that portray
the human side of the Redeemer's nature. No genealogies are given, there
is no mention of the birth at Bethlehem, or of the life at Nazareth; the
childhood is passed over as well as the baptism of our Lord, and the Lord
appears before the reader, in the very beginning, not only as the Son of man
but as the Son of God. The Divine Word is traced, step by step, as he
speaks and acts in human form, as he controls the elements of nature, creates
food and drink for man, creates new organs in those without them from
birth, unlocks the tomb and calls forth a friend from the embrace of death,
as he speaks to friends and foes of his relations to the Father, as he suffers
and is humiliated, and in the sublimest of all miracles, overthrows Death
who claimed him as a victim. He is traced when he comes forth a
conqueror because "he had life in himself," and after a continued manifestation
to his disciples, ascends in order that the Comforter might come "to
abide with them forever." Never for a moment does John lose sight of the
truth that the Savior in the "brightness of the Father's glory and the express
image of his person." Yet it must not be supposed that in this respect
there is any contradiction between John and the other Gospels. While the
Savior is regarded from different standpoints the pictures are in complete
harmony. John shows us the mother and "his brethren," the Baptist as the
"Voice in the wilderness" who bears witness of Christ; he reveals the Lord
"groaning" and "troubled in spirit," as weeping at the grave of a friend,
or weary at Jacob's well. He attests that with his own eyes he saw him
wounded to death and die, and indeed he concedes all they narrate of the
human life of our Lord. On the other hand, they affirm, if with less emphasis,
the matchless majesty of the Son of God. He is conceived without
sin, is the Lord of David
(Matt. 22:43),
claims power on earth to forgive
sins, declares himself the judge of the world
(Matt. 7:21 and 25:31-46),
will come riding on the clouds of heaven, will come in his glory with
his holy angels with him, will take his seat on the throne of glory to judge
all nations, is seen on the Mount of Transfiguration shining with heavenly
glory, declares after the resurrection that all power in heaven and earth is
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II. The Gospel of John is the Gospel of Love. It is true that the same doctrine is taught by the others. There the Savior declares that love is the very basis of eternal life; there is taught, perhaps the sweetest of all parables, that of the Good Samaritan. Yet there is an emphasis of love by John not found elsewhere. He it is who declares, "God is love," and of this he gives the highest possible proof in the fact that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." Here it is that Christ is revealed as the "Good Shepherd who layeth down his life for his sheep;" here is also given the New Commandment, "Love one another, as I have loved you;" and here it is, also, the sin of unbelief in rejecting a Savior whose very being is love, is most fully described.
III. It is the most Spiritual Gospel. Within about a hundred years of the
time when it was written Clement of Alexandria declared that John wrote a
Gospel of spiritual things, while the earlier Evangelists wrote Gospels of
material things. By this he meant that they were more matter of fact, and
did not enter into the deep questions, or take the deep spiritual views which
are constantly exhibited in John. As the student of Scripture drinks more
deeply into the word of God he will observe this more and more. Not only
does John bring to the front the profoundest questions, but he beholds a
significance in every act of Christ. Every miracle and act becomes a kind of
parable. The water of the well of Jacob gives occasion to the precious utterances
concerning the Living Water; the feeding of the Five Thousand brings
out the discourses on the Bread of Life; the rejection of the healed blind man
by his spiritual shepherds calls out the beautiful picture of the Good Shepherd;
the fruit of the Vine on the table of the Last Supper occasions the
delineation of the True Vine. Not only does John unfold a deep spiritual
meaning, as just described, but he gives an emphasis to the Holy Spirit that
is not found in the preceding Gospels. They are by no means silent; they
speak of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the sin against it, praying for it,
baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and of the promise
of the Father that the disciples shall be endued with its power in Jerusalem,
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