It is an objection often urged against the view of the apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel that in it there is no progress, no development, no crisis, nothing, e.g., to correspond with the significance of the confession of Peter at Caesarea Philippi. (Mt 16:13-17 parallel). This is held to be true alike of the character of Jesus, which, under the influence of the Logos-doctrine of the prologue, exhibits no development from first to last, and of the attitude of the disciples, whose faith in Jesus as the Christ is likewise represented as complete from the beginning. In reality the opposite is the case. In the course of the Gospel, as already said, the glory of the Lord is ever more completely manifested, and the disciples attain to a deeper faith, while the unbelief of those who reject Him becomes more fixed, until it is absolute. This will appear clearly on nearer examination.
1. The Presentation of Jesus in the Gospel:
The objection from the presentation of Jesus in the Gospel takes different forms, which it is desirable to consider separately.
(1) Alleged Absence of Development in the Character of Jesus.
It is affirmed, first, that there is no development in the character of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, none of those indications such as we have in the Synoptics of widening horizons, no recognition of the fact that the meaning, purpose and issue of His calling became clearer to Him as the days passed by. To this assertion there are two answers. The first is, that in a series of scenes from the activity of Jesus, selected for the definite purpose set forth in the Gospel, there is no need to demand a continuous history of His ministry. Selection is made precisely of those scenes which set forth His insight into human character and motive, His power of sympathetic healing, His command over Nature, and His supreme authority over man and the world. The other remark is, that even in the Fourth Gospel there are hints of a crisis in the ministry of our Lord, during which He came to a clearer recognition of the fuller meaning of His mission (e.g. the visit of the Greeks, Joh 12:1-50). It will be seen further, below, that it is not true in this Gospel, any more than in the Synoptics, that Jesus is represented as publicly proclaiming Himself as the Messiah from the first.
(2) Alleged "Autonomy" of Jesus.
Akin to the above is the objection to the historicity of the Gospel that in it Jesus is represented as always directing His own course, maintaining an attitude of aloofness to men, refusing to be influenced by them. This, it is held, results from the dominance of the Logos-idea in the prologue. The reply is that there is really no essential difference between the attitude of Jesus in these respects in the Synoptics and in Jn. In all alike He maintains an attitude of authority. In the Synoptics He can say, "I say unto you" (Mt 5:22,28,32, etc.). In them also He claims to be the teacher of absolute truth, the Saviour, the Ruler, the Judge, of men. In this regard there is no new claim made in the Fourth Gospel: "No one cometh unto the Father, but by me" (Joh 14:6). But He had said, "Come unto me .... and I will give you rest" (Mt 11:28). A claim to authority over men is thus common to all the Gospels. In all of them, too, in the Fourth no less than in the others, there is on the part of Jesus loyalty, submission, subordination to the Father. In fact this is more conspicuous in the Fourth Gospel than in the Synoptics: "The Father is greater than I" (Joh 14:28). The words He speaks are the Father's words; the works He does are the Father's (Joh 5:19-20; 7:16,18, etc.): "This commandment received I from my Father" (Joh 10:18). In all the Gospels it is one consistent, gracious Figure who appears.
(3) "Inconceivability" of Logos-Presentation.
A further objection, which aims at showing that this Gospel could not be the work of "a primitive apostle," may be noticed, partly from the eminence of him who makes it, and partly from the interest of the objection itself. In his work on The Apostolic Age, Weizsacker says, "It is a puzzle that the beloved disciple of the Gospel, he who reclined at table next to Jesus, should have come to regard and represent his whole former experience as a life with the incarnate Logos of God. It is impossible to imagine any power of faith and philosophy so great as thus to obliterate the recollection of a real life and to substitute for it this marvelous picture of a Divine being. We can understand that Paul, who had not known Jesus, who had not come into contact with the man. should have been opposed to the tradition of the eyewitnesses, the idea of the heavenly man, and that he should have substituted the Christ who was spirit for His earthly manifestation, pronouncing the latter to be positively a stage above which faith must rise. For a primitive apostle it is inconceivable. The question is decided here and finally here" (II, 211). It is easy to say, "For a primitive apostle it is inconceivable," yet we know that a primitive apostle believed that Jesus rose from the dead, that He was exalted a Prince and Saviour, that He was seated at the right hand of God, that He was Lord of all (Ac 2:22-36). If we grant that the primitive church believed these things, it cannot be fairly said that the further step taken in the Fourth Gospel is inconceivable. In truth, the objection of Weizsacker is not taken against the Fourth Gospel; it is equally effective against Christianity in general. If Jesus be what He is said to be in the Synoptic Gospels, and if He be what the primitive church held Him to be, the leading conception of the Fourth Gospel is credible and conceivable. If Christianity is credible, the Fourth Gospel adds nothing to the difficulty of faith; rather it gives an additional ground for a rational faith.
2. The Logos-Doctrine of the Prologue:
It is proper at this point that a little more should be said on the Logos-doctrine itself, in its bearing on the presentation of Christ in this Gospel (for the philosophical and historical aspects of the doctrine, see LOGOS). Obviously the great interest of the author of the reminiscences and reflections in the Fourth Gospel is in the personal life of the Master whom he had known so intimately. To him this real historical life was everything. On it he brooded, on it he meditated, and he strove to make the significance of it ever more real to himself first, and to others afterward. How shall he make the reality of that life apparent to all? What were the relationships of that person to God, to man, and to the world? What Jesus really was, and what were His relations to God, to man, and to the world, John endeavors to make known in the prologue. This real person whom he had known, revered, loved, was something more than was apparent to the eyes of an ordinary observer; more even than had been apparent to His disciples. How shall this be set forth? From the Gospel it is evident that the historical person is first, and the attempt to set forth the meaning of the person is second. The prologue is an attempt to find language to set forth fitly the glory of the person. The Logos-doctrine does not descend on the historic person as a garment from without; it is an endeavor to describe what John had grown to recognize as the essential meaning of the person of Jesus. It is not a speculative theory we have here, not an endeavor to think out a theory of the world or of God; it is an attempt to find suitable language for what the writer recognizes to be a great fact. We need not, therefore, seek an explanation of John's Logos-doctrine in the speculation of Heraclitus, in theories of the Stoics, even in the eclecticism of Philo. The interests of these men are far removed from the atmosphere of the Fourth Gospel. They desired a theory of the universe; John sought to set forth the significance of a personal historical life. In the prologue he set forth that life, and he chose a word which he filled up with concreter meaning, a meaning which included the deepest teaching of the Old Testament, and the highest thought of his contemporaries. The teaching of Paul, especially in the epistles of the captivity, approaches very closely to that of the Fourth Gospel. Thus it is not a right method to bring the Logos-doctrine to the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, and to look at all the phenomena of the Gospel as mere illustrations of that doctrine. The right method is the reverse. The Logos-doctrine has no concreteness, no living reality, taken apart from the personal life which was manifested to the apostle. The prologue represents what John had come to see as to the meaning of the personality he had historically known. He sets it forth once for all in the prologue, and never once in the Gospel does he refer to it again. We can understand that Logos-doctrine when we look at it in the light of those manifestations recorded in' the Gospel, manifestations which enabled John to behold His glory; we cannot understand the manifestations if we look at them merely as illustrations of an abstract philosophical theorem. In brief, the Fourth Gospel is concrete, not abstract; it is not the evolution or the demonstration of a theory, but the attempt to set forth a concrete personality, and to find fitting words to express the significance of that personality as John had grown to see it.
3. Growth of Faith and Development of Unbelief:
As it is with the character of Jesus, so it is with the alleged absence of development in the faith of the disciples. Careful inquiry shows this objection also to be unfounded.
(1) Early Confessions.
Here again, it is said, we see the end from the beginning. In Joh 1:1-51 Jesus is twice greeted as the Messiah (Joh 1:41,45), and twice described as the Son of God (Joh 1:34,49). The Baptist at this early stage points to Him as "the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world" (Joh 1:29). Reference is made to the case of Nicodemus (Joh 3:1 ff), to the Samaritans (Joh 4:41 f), and other incidents of the same kind, with the view of proving that at this early stage of the ministry of our Lord such confessions are unlikely, and even impossible. It is to be noticed, however, that the confessions in these cases are represented as the outcome of special manifestations on the part of Jesus to the persons who make them. And the manifestations are such as to justify the psychological possibility of the confession. It is so in the case of Nathaniel. Nor is the objection to the testimony of John the Baptist of a kind which admits of no answer. For the Baptist, according to the Synoptics, had found his own credentials in Isa 40:1-31. There he found himself and his mission, and described himself, as we find it in the Fourth Gospel, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet" (Joh 1:23; compare Mt 3:3; Mr 1:2-3). We find also that when John "heard in the prison the works of the Christ," and "sent by his disciples and said unto him, Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?" (Mt 11:2), the answer of Jesus was a reference to a passage in Isa 61:1-11. According to Jesus these were the true signs of the Messianic kingdom. Is there any reason why we should not say that, as John found his own credentials in Isa 40:1-31, he would also have found the character and signs of the Coming One in the description of the suffering servant in Isa 53:1-12? If he did so, what more simple than that he should describe the Coming One as the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world? In His answer to John, Jesus simply asks him to read farther on in that prophesy which had already meant so much for him.
(2) Growth of Faith in the Disciples.
Apart from what may be made of these early confessions, it may fairly be said that there are many signs of a growth of faith on the part of the disciples. Carrying with us the fact that each of these confessions had its ground in a particular manifestation of the glory of Christ, we go on to passages which prove how imperfect was the faith of the disciples. It is to be remembered also that John has only one word to describe all the phases of faith, from the slightest impression up to whole-hearted conviction and thorough surrender. We may refer to the careful and exhaustive treatment of the meanings of the word "believing" by E. A. Abbott in his work, Johannine Vocabulary. In the Fourth Gospel the verb is always used, and never the noun. As the word is used, it denotes the impression made, whether that impression is slight and transient, or deep and abiding. Successive steps of acceptance are seen as the disciples advance to complete and absolute faith.
As we read the Gospel, we perceive that Jesus did test and try the faith of His disciples, and made His deeds and His words both tests of faith, and a means for its growth. As the result of the words on the bread of life, we find that many of His disciples said, "This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" (Joh 6:60), and on account of the difficulty of His words, "Many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him" (Joh 6:66). On His appeal to those who did not go away it is found that the difficulty became really an opportunity to them for a larger faith (Joh 6:68-69). The incidents and events of the night of the betrayal, and the conversations on that night, prove how incomplete were the faith and confidence of the disciples; how far they were from a full understanding of the Master's purpose. Nor is it until after the resurrection, and the gladness of seeing their risen Lord in the upper room, that faith obtained a complete victory, and attained to full possession of itself.
(3) Gradual Disclosure of Messiahship: Growth of Unbelief.
On the other side, there is as manifestly an evolution of unbelief from the passing doubt of. the moment on to the complete disbelief in Jesus, and utter rejection of Him.
It is only fair here to the Gospel to observe that the confessions to which we have already referred are on the part of individuals who came into special relationship with Jesus. Such is the case with regard to Nathaniel, Nicodemus, the woman of Samaria and the Samaritan people, and the writer places the reader in that close relationship so that he who reads may believe. But such close relationship to Jesus is only the lot of a few in this Gospel. It is not true, as already remarked, that in this Gospel Jesus is represented as definitely proclaiming Himself as the Messiah. There is something of the same reserve here as there is in the Synoptics. He did not assert His claim; He left it to be inferred. His brethren hint that He ought to put His claims really to the test (Joh 7:3 f). An account of the doubts and speculations regarding Him is given in Joh 7:1-53. The people hesitate, and inquire, and speculate, Is He a good man, or a deceiver? (Joh 7:12) Had He really a mission from God? (Joh 7:14 ff)--all of which goes to prove that only certain individuals had such intimate knowledge of Him as to lead to acceptance. In Joh 10:1-42 we read, "And it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem: it was winter; and Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon's porch. The Jews therefore came round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou hold us in suspense? If thou art the Christ, tell us plainly" (Joh 10:22-24). "It is very clear," as Dr. Sanday says, "that no sharply defined issue was set before the people. They are left to draw their own conclusions; and they draw them as well as they can by the help of such criteria as they have. But there is no entweder .... oder ....--either Messiah or not Messiah--peremptorily propounded by Jesus Himself" (The Criticism of the Fourth Gospel, 164). The sum of the matter as regards the development of unbelief is given by the evangelist in the words: "Though he had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on him" (12:37). On the other hand, the culmination of faith is seen in the word of the Lord to Thomas: "Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (20:29).
LITERATURE.
Besides Comms. and other works mentioned in the article, with valuable articles on the Gospel in Dicts. and Encs, the following may be consulted: M. Dods, common. "Fourth Gospel" in Expositor's Greek Testament; Julicher, Eintleitung in das NT6 (1906, English Translation); E. A. Abbott, Johannine Vocabulary (1905), and Johannine Grammar (1906); H. J. Holtzmann, Evangelium, Briefe und Offenbarung des Johannes, besorgt von W. Bauer (1908); Essays on Some Biblical Questions of the Day by Members of the University of Cambridge, edited by Dr. Swete (1909), Essay IX, "The Theology of the Fourth Gospel," by W.H. Inge, and Essay X, "The Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel," by C.E. Brooke; Schmiedel, The Johannine Writings (English translation, 1908); J. Armitage Robinson, The Historical Character of John's Gospel (1908); Askwith, The Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel (1910); Ezra Abbot, External Evidence of the Fourth Gospel, edited by J.H. Thayer (1891); Lowrie, The Doctrine of John (1899).
James Iverach