It is hardly possible to come to this wonderful piece of writing without beginning very quickly to develop a feeling of awe and a sense of mystery, for John is a deep and profound writer, and his insight into the meaning of the gospel seems to bring us to the very heart of ultimate meaning. Anyone familiar with the four gospels is conscious that John stands in many ways distinct from the other three (the synoptics). There are marked similarities in the latter, in structure and in material, but John's account differs in both. He omits many things the others include: here there is no genealogy, no account of the birth of Christ, no boyhood scene, no baptism, no temptation, no transfiguration account, no Gethsemane agony. On the other hand, John alone records our Lord's first year of ministry in Judea, the discourses on the new birth, the living water, the bread of life, the good shepherd, the light of the world and, above all, the Upper Room discourse and our Lord's great intercessory prayer. These are some of the considerations that make John's gospel a very profound and mysterious book. The words of the woman of Samaria may well be used to describe the sense of inadequacy with which a minister of the Word comes to expound it: 'Sir, the well is deep, and thou hast nothing to draw with'.
1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
John 1:1
The literature on John's gospel is immense, and the number of commentaries legion, with interpretations manifold and various. This stems at least in part from the fact that his record seems too different from the others, leading scholars to assume that it is a 'spiritual’ or even 'mystical' gospel, while the others are factual and historical. This was the view of critical scholarship until about forty years ago. One writer then said, 'John may contain a few fragments of true tradition, but in the main it is fiction' i.e. not in the true sense a historical record, only sermonic and spiritual interpretation of the significance of Jesus. But scholarship has taken an about turn in recent years (so much for the reliability of 'the assured results of modern scholarship!), and C.H. Dodd now says, 'Behind the fourth gospel lies an ancient tradition independent of the other gospels and meriting serious consideration as a contribution to our knowledge of the historical facts concerning Jesus Christ’. Two things may be said about this. One is that we cannot really think of John's account as different in kind from the other three; it is only a different emphasis, dealing with the same subject matter. How could it be essentially different? The other thing is that while the above has an important bearing on New Testament studies in general and has given a great deal of illumination in the right interpretation of the gospels, such critical issues and questions do not basically concern us in our study of the gospel as the word of God. The spiritual value of the book is not in question, and our concern is to interpret it spiritually. William Temple states in the Introduction to his Bible Readings in John: 'I am chiefly concerned with what arises in my mind and spirit as I read; and I hope this is not totally different from saying that I am concerned with what the Holy Spirit says to me through the gospel'. And he goes on, ‘This is always a legitimate way to read the Bible, and religiously the most important'.