John's account of the ministry of Jesus consists of two parts. In this connection, John says, "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." Because God was present in Jesus, it is appropriate to refer to Jesus as the Son of God, which is an example of what can happen in the life of anyone else in whom the power of God dwells. In this way, John conceives the relationship between the divine and the human. The most significant thing about Jesus is that the divine Logos was present in him, and all of the marvelous things that he accomplished were by virtue of the power of God. He regards Jesus as a human being who possessed actual flesh and blood, the same as other people. John says nothing of a supernatural birth. This Logos became flesh and dwelt among men in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In the Gospel of John, the central theme is the divine Logos, the word that was with God and that was God. The messianic character of Jesus' mission was described in terms of the miracles that he performed, his kindly attitude toward the poor and the oppressed, his power to cast out demons and to heal the sick, and his instructions concerning the way people should live in view of the imminence of the coming kingdom. The central theme in the Synoptic Gospels is the coming of the kingdom of God, and it was in relation to this event that the accounts were given of the life and teachings of Jesus. This purpose was one that John had in common with the men who wrote the Synoptic Gospels, but his method for achieving it distinguishes his gospel from the earlier ones. The purpose of this gospel, as stated by John himself, is to show that Jesus of Nazareth was Christ, the Son of God, and that believers in him might have eternal life. It explains the omission in the Gospel of John of many items found in the earlier accounts, and it also explains, at least in part, the different attitude about Jews, the allegorical interpretations of certain miracle stories, the absence of apocalypticism with reference to the second coming, the subordinate role of John the Baptist, and a new concept of the Messiah. This objective helps us to understand many of the unique characteristics of John's gospel, especially the ones that sharply contrast the Synoptic Gospels. His hope was that he might write one that was not only true but that offered a presentation of the Christian faith that would overcome the objections of its critics and gain the respect of the educated and cultured people of his day. Because he believed so firmly in the new Christian movement, he wanted to write a gospel that set forth its essential truth in the best possible manner. The author of the Gospel of John was evidently aware of these attacks and knew that some of the accounts given in earlier gospels were interpreted in a manner that seemed to support these charges. On the contrary, it presents an interpretation of Jesus that reflects ideas and situations that prevailed in the Christian community toward the end of the first century of the Christian era, a time when Christianity was under attack from several different quarters, including Jews, Romans, skeptics, and others making charges against it. Written by a Christian named John, the contents of the book indicate quite clearly that the author was not the John who was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus, for it contains no direct personal references of the type that one would expect from an intimate associate of Jesus. The Gospel of John is the latest-written of the four biographies of Jesus that have been preserved in the New Testament.
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