John’s Purpose

Before jumping into the text of John’s Gospel itself, there are a few items helpful to consider. In this post I will consider the purpose of John’s Gospel.

Many books in the Bible do not provide an explicit purpose for their being written. In those cases one has to infer from the content what the writer was trying to do. In our case here, John has explicitly laid out his purpose:

“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that the Messiah, the Son of God, is Jesus, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31).

In the first place I believe that John was writing the book evangelistically to those expecting the Messiah, that is, to Jews and proselytes. But though this may have been the historical intention of the author, there is more to say for us today.

John makes clear his purpose in writing: to believe that the Messiah, the Son of God, is Jesus, and that the one who believes may have life in him. It is evangelistic to us today as well since it is clear from the Gospel that belief in Jesus is not limited to the first audience that John wrote for. The book seeks to convince any reader that Jesus is the Son of God and the result of this belief is to have life, a metaphorical expression for being transformed by God from a life of rebellion against God (sin) to a life of love toward and from God. How this is achieved is made clear through the book (hint: believing in Jesus and his work on the cross).

But if the book is evangelistic, does this then mean that it is not for Christians? Well, in the first place, we must consider that a familiarity with the book will aid a Christian in sharing it with those who do not as of yet believe in Jesus. Knowing the parts of the book that speak of Jesus’ divinity, for example, can be helpful in discussions with those who deny his divinity. But this is simply a practical result of the book’s purpose.

More than this, it is helpful to remember that the gospel is not just for non-Christians, but for all people. Christians never stop needing to hear and believe the good news of the cross. Once a person has read the book and believed in Jesus, ongoing faith and growth in maturity are still required. We are told to remain in that teaching (cf. John 8:31; 1 John 2:27-28). We will always need to keep the centre the centre: Jesus Christ and his atoning work on the cross (cf. 1 Cor. 15:1-3ff.). So, the Christian can profitably read John’s Gospel and get to know Jesus more intimately as our God, King, Saviour, and Lord.

This purpose will therefore help control how we read the book as we progress. It will be a strong and common theme throughout. And in the process I pray that we all will grow in our trust in Jesus and many will gain life in his name.

In the next study we will look briefly at the use of the Old Testament in John’s Gospel. The reason for looking at it so early is because of the stated historical purpose above that the book was originally written as an evangelistic work for Jews and proselytes.

The New Blog & Teaching through John

I used to be a fairly avid blogger. I would write mostly on the things I was learning in linguistics and biblical studies, but found myself needing a break. After a substantial break, I’ve begun this new site with a specific purpose: exegeting and teaching from the Bible. As a grad student in New Testament studies, this is my passion.

I’ve decided to begin with a series on the Gospel of John. No matter what I study (and I love the whole Bible) I keep coming back to this book as one I want to do more and more work in. It just grips me.

This blog’s foundation will be twice weekly bible studies on John’s Gospel to start. I’m currently undergoing treatment for an illness so I’m going to be flexible with the frequency. My goal is to release a new study on Tuesdays and Fridays.

The blog will also contain my musings throughout the week as I see fit on issues and resources related to biblical studies but in order that the studies through John are not lost, you will find them indexed above in the header.

My goal with these studies is to keep them relatively brief and to operate on a non-technical level so that they are open to everyone. I’m going to err on the side of handling pericopes and the meaning of the text at this level and not spending my time writing on single verses so much. There will be times where a topic might demand it, however. Exactly what this will look like will become clear as I start to write them! My hope is that they will be a source of devotional study for you as you follow along with me.

Please feel free to interact in the comments section (and we can get more technical there if you have questions).

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Matt. 1:1-17

Matthew 1:1-17 – The Expected Son of David Is Here

Not many modern writers I’m aware of would start their works with a genealogy. And I’m not sure many modern readers would tolerate it if they did. So what happens when we come to the Gospel according to Matthew in the New Testament? Do we read the first line and immediately jump to verse 17 to get on with the good stuff? Do we have the patience required to hear how Asa fathered Jehoshophat and Jehoshapat fathered Jehoram, on and on, world without end, Amen? We might not, but then again, if this is God’s Word, we might do well to first ask what this genealogy is trying to accomplish and what it tells us about its main topic.

The first thing we need to remember is that we are reading a book that was written in the first century. This is significant. We first need to approach it on its own terms and recognize Hebrew and Christian literary devices and works. While much debate surrounds the genre classification of the four Gospels the easiest way to first approach them is to see them as a form of ancient biography. The word “ancient” is important because the four Gospels don’t read like a John F. Kennedy biography. Instead, these books were written by eyewitnesses and disciples of eyewitnesses of Jesus who want you to know who Jesus was and trust in who he is still today.

Pre-Matthew

Part of communicating to us who Jesus was hinges on what precedes Matthew, namely, the Hebrew Tanakh, or what Christians call the Old Testament. Ever since Genesis 3 (The Fall), the world has awaited someone who would come and right the wrong. Who would restore the relationship with God lost in our rebellion against him? Who even could restore the relationship? But in what’s called the protoevangelium (Latin for the “first gospel”), we are given the first glimpse at good news: speaking to the serpent God says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3:15, TNIV, emphasis mine). Already, immediately following The Fall, yes God punishes the sin, but he also promises a crushing of Satan that would come from the offspring of the woman.

The Scriptures move forward and God writes covenants with people whom he chooses (for example, Abraham, see Genesis 12 and following, or Moses, see Exodus 3-4 and 32-34) and brings Israel as a nation into being. He sets up the Levitical priesthood and the sacrificial system and eventually the Israelites receive a king and soon David takes to the throne, a man after God’s heart (1 Sam. 13:14).

In 2 Samuel 7, God makes a promise to David. There is no temple in Jerusalem at this time and David has decided that he would be the one to build a house for God to dwell in. But God turns it around on him. God says that he will build a house (household, family, dynasty) for David (v. 11b) (this is a pun in the Hebrew, the word ‘bayit’ can mean both ‘house’ as in a building and ‘family’ or ‘dynasty’).[1] Then he says in verses 12-16,

When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by human beings, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever. (TNIV)

So, who is God talking about? On the face of it, the “Sunday School Answer” won’t work. It’s not Jesus. How would you then deal with verse 14: “When he does wrong I will punish him”? The answer is that God is talking about Solomon, David’s direct son. And indeed, Solomon will be the one to build a temple for God (see 1 Kings 6).

But something more is going on here. God tells David that his house and his kingdom will endure forever; his throne will be established forever. There are two options for what this means. Either David will always have a direct descendent on the throne, one after another after another forever (which didn’t happen), or a son of David will come who will reign eternally. Yes, the Messiah will come and reign on David’s throne. The Messiah is a type of David, so that when we come to Hebrews 1:5 in the New Testament, the writer can attribute 2 Sam. 7:14 (“I will be his Father, and he will be my Son”) directly about Jesus.  

And this then becomes built into the expectations of the Israelites for centuries following so that Jeremiah can say, “‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land…. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteous Savior’” (Jer. 23:5-6, TNIV). Space doesn’t permit our looking even into Isaiah or the Minor Prophets right down to the fourth century before Christ.

Back to Matthew

But finally we turn the pages into the New Testament and return to Matthew, about one millennium after David and about six centuries after Jeremiah. Matthew begins his Gospel, “This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Matthew then traces Jesus’ lineage from Abraham to David, from David to the Babyonian exile and from that exile to Jesus himself.

There you have it; the genealogy has a great purpose indeed.  Matthew has just tied the whole Bible’s storyline together. The seed of the offspring of Abraham, the expected son of David, the one who would reign eternally, the one first vaguely but certainly prophesied about in Genesis 3, the one more clearly talked about for centuries by the prophets…  he has come in the flesh and his name is Jesus.


[1] Brown, Francis, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs. Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. electronic ed. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, 2000. בַּ֫יִת
Carson, D. A. New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition. 4th ed. Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill., USA: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994. In location.