Or, Coming to the Point in the Book for Life
Scripture: John 20:30-31
Date: September 7, 2014
Speaker: Sean Higgins
It took 851 verses for John to get to the point. He lands the plane a second time in chapter 21; we could call that an epilogue. But John 20:30-31 exposes the ultimate reason why the beloved apostle wrote everything he did. He summarizes why he selected the stories he did and provides his purpose for penning the book. Once we crack the nutshell, you may lose a couple hours this next week going back to reread twenty chapters of nutmeat about Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. I think John figured you probably would.
So where were we? Jesus is alive! He lives, not just as the Word made flesh, not just God as man among men, but also He lives as the Resurrection. The previous five paragraphs in chapter 20 report the news. There is no reason to weep, Mary. There is peace and forgiveness for you, disciples, including Thomas.
Crown Him the Lord of life,
who triumphed over the grave,
And rose victorious in the strife
for those He came to save.
His glories now we sing,
who died, and rose on high,
Who died eternal life to bring,
and lives that death may die.
Thomas condenses a chorus of faith into one line: “My Lord and my God” (verse 28). John wrote this for us not only because it happened, not only because of Jesus pronouncing that those who believe without seeing will be blessed, but so that we would believe. That’s why John wrote everything he did.
The connection might be more obvious if we started reading verse 30 with a “Therefore” (like the NAS, unlike the ESV). Verses 30-31 tie a bow over twenty chapters, but the thread comes from Thomas’ confession. Thomas saw and believed in Jesus. Jesus promises blessing for those who don’t see and yet believe. John wants that for all his readers, therefore he wrote.
We also don’t see represented in the ESV a grammatical construction in Greek that works like our “on the one hand…on the other hand.” The limits in verse 30 on one hand, are anything but a problem on the other hand. We’ve got to hand it to John, he’s give us everything we need to believe in Jesus as the Christ.
It’s taken me 121 sermons to unwrap and unfold John’s narrative. But John didn’t get close to packing everything in the book as it is.
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; (John 20:30)
The two little fingers that make this hand of the argument are many and not : many other signs…which are not written . John wrote 30-40 years after Matthew, Mark, and Luke. He knew what they wrote. The only signs that overlap with the Synoptics are when Jesus fed the 5,000 and when He walked on water. The other signs in John, signs such as giving sight to the man born blind and raising Lazarus from the dead, these are exclusive to John’s account. Yet even if we read all four Gospels and added it all together, we still only have a small fraction of the grand total. Look at what John wrote and the end of his second conclusion.
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. (John 21:25)
Every author chooses. Every wordsmith struggles existentially: “(what) to write, or (what) not to write, that is the question.” That many other signs…are not written is no knock against John for leaving a lot out. Maybe if he had a blog he would have written more, or even if he just had a papyrus store nearby…who knows? He sorted through the stories and selected out of the many signs and related some. The signs are mainly in chapters 1-12, but the teaching in chapters 13-17 explain why He did what He did. And the same discourse explains the ultimate sign of His resurrection. The men who saw the signs, in the presence of the disciples , saw Him alive. The fact that he puts the conclusion here after the resurrection, and since John says, written in this book , means that he’s talking about the whole thing.
It’s humbling. Have you mastered the Gospel of John? Can you name all seven of the “I am”s, and can you explain every example of humble service as Jesus’ glory? Do you know Jesus? You may (and can, as verse 31 says) believe in Jesus, but at best you know a bit. We know in part. John wrote a selected account of Jesus’ work.
But don’t be too discouraged. John didn’t give us everything, but he did give us everything we need. The limited account doesn’t limit its potency.
but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:31)
Here is the purpose of the book. Actually, there are two purposes, a direct purpose and a supreme purpose.
On the one hand, not everything Jesus did is recorded. But on the other hand, these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God .
Even when John wrote about some who only believed based on visible miracles (as early as 2:24-25), or when he wrote about how Jesus’ own people, the Jews, rejected Him, betrayed Him, and turned Him over for crucifixion, John wrote so that we would believe that Jesus is the Christ . Christ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “Messiah.” Reading the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah would mean looking not only for a glorious deliverer, but for a suffering servant, despised and rejected by men. The suffering was part of the delivering. Israel would reject the Christ, so writing about Israel’s rejection corroborated Jesus as the One.
Of course the “positive” displays of power point to Jesus as the promised one, too. He is Word, He is God. He is the Christ, the Son of God .
John puts this after recording the resurrection. He foreshadowed it, though, when he related the exchange between Jesus and Martha.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26)
Note how she answers.
She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” (John 11:27)
Paul told the Romans that Christ Jesus “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:4). The resurrection authenticated every other sign. All signs lead to this conclusion, and the conclusion compels us to believe.
Jesus is the man, the name for the historical human being who lived on the planet in Israel. Christ is the office He took, the promised redemptive position He fulfilled through His life and when He laid down His life. And Son of God identifies His eternal, divine nature as the second Person of the Trinity. Forever He has been, is, and will be Son of the Father, begotten but not made. It was this claim that compelled the Jews to kill Him. It is this claim that John compels us to believe.
[N]ot one of the ordinary rank of men could have been found, who was competent to perform so great undertakings; that is, to reconcile the Father to us, to atone for the sins of the world, to abolish death, to destroy the kingdom of Satan, to bring to us true righteousness and salvation (Calvin, 282)
Believing isn’t the end of the Gospel of John, though the only way to get to the end involves believing. The end also isn’t described here as the glory of God, though what John says is what gives God glory. These selected signs were written in order to believe in order that by believing you may have life in his name .
The book began with life. “In the beginning was the Word” (1:1). “In him was life and the life was the light of men” (1:4). He is the bread of life (6:35), and “the bread of God is he who came down from heaven and gives life to the world” (6:34). As the good shepherd He came that His sheep may have life and have it abundantly (10:10). Jesus called Himself the resurrection and the life (11:25). He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (14:6).
We were in darkness. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, brings us into light. We were sons of the devil, slaves to lies. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, frees us by truth into sonship to His Father. We were working for bread that perishes. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, gives us bread so that we will never hunger again. We were like sheep going astray. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, leads us in and out. We were dead. We were enemies of God. Jesus Christ, the son of God, purchased our peace and forgiveness. The Spirit blew and caused us to be born again, resurrected to life by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
It’s almost as if there’s a reason John 3:16 does such a good job of communicating the gospel. God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that all the ones believing in Him will never perish but have eternal life, a kind of life, not just a duration of life.
The supreme purpose John has in mind is not merely to supplement, let alone to correct, the other Gospel writers, though he does do that. His final aim is not that we would have another accurate, eyewitness testimony about the details of Jesus’ earthly sojourn. John wants his readers to have God’s life, Trinitarian life, eternal life, abundant life.
On the one hand, we’ve seen so little of all that there is to believe about Jesus. On the other hand, we who believe live so much. For all who believe without seeing, there is blessing. And John’s Gospel is the “Book for Life,” written so that unbelievers would believe. If you have been following along, what do you say about all these signs?
As a Christian, John the Evangelist serves us well with this good news tract. Do you feel more prepared to tell others about salvation in God’s Son after doing over this material?
John also serves disciples by stimulating and strengthening our believing. We are the ones with life, and we learn what that means, and even how those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life (12:25). We believe in Jesus, we abide in Jesus for life, and that’s now and that’s joyful.
John intentionally incentivizes believing. He carefully crafted—through the inspiration of God’s Spirit—stories to stimulate believing. Don’t you want to go back and reread it all again?