The Fourth Gospel describes the mystery of the identity of Jesus. The Gospel According to John develops a Christology—an explanation of Christ’s nature and origin—while leaving out much of the familiar material that runs through the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, including Jesus’s short aphorisms and parables, references to Jesus’s background, and proclamations about the kingdom of God. Whereas Mark’s Gospel brings us the texture of first-century Palestine with a vivid, concrete, and earthy Jesus, John’s Gospel is filled with long discourses describing Jesus’s divinity. John takes us behind Jesus’s ministry, where we get a glimpse of what it means to believe in Jesus as flesh of the eternal and living God, as the source of light and life, and for a believer to be a “Son of God.” Though John’s narrative diverges from the synoptic Gospels, it is indeed a Gospel, or a telling of good news. It includes the basics of Jesus’s ministry—his preaching, miracles, trial, crucifixion, and resurrection. It is likely that John heard the details about these events from a very early oral source common to all the Gospels, but the freedom he uses to interpret these events helps us see clearly that all accounts of Jesus have come to us through the filter of interpretation. John may have been written a bit later than the synoptic Gospels, likely around 90 A.D. The actual author of John’s Gospel was probably an interpreter of John, who was one of Jesus’s original disciples.
John's Gospel emphasizes Jesus' identity as the Messiah and Son of God, one who performs miracles and gives eternal life to all who believe in him. John's Gospel emphasizes Jesus' identity as the Messiah and Son of God, one who performs miracles and gives eternal life to all who believe in him.
