The Gospel that is Different
But we have only to read the Fourth Gospel in the most cursory way to see that it is quite different from the other three. It omits so many things that they include. The Fourth Gospel has no account of the birth of Jesus, of his baptism, of his temptations; it tells us nothing of the Last Supper, nothing of Gethsemane and nothing of the ascension. It has no word of the healing of any people possessed by devils and evil spirits. And, perhaps most surprising of all, it has none of the parable stories Jesus told which are such a priceless part of the other three gospels. In these other three gospels, Jesus speaks either in these wonderful stories or in short, epigrammatic, vivid sentences which stick in the memory. But in the Fourth Gospel, the speeches of Jesus are often a whole chapter long and are often involved, argumentative pronouncements quite unlike the pithy, unforgettable sayings of the other three.
Even more surprising, the account in the Fourth Gospel of the facts of the life and ministry of Jesus is often different from that in the other three.
(1) John has a different account of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. In the other three gospels, it is quite definitely stated that Jesus did not emerge as a preacher until after John the Baptist had been imprisoned. ‘Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God’ (Mark 1:14; cf. Luke 3:18, 20; Matthew 4:12). But in John there is a quite considerable period during which the ministry of Jesus overlapped with the activity of John the Baptist (John 3:22–30, 4:1–2).
(2) John has a different account of the scene of Jesus’ ministry. In the other three gospels, the main scene of the ministry is Galilee, and Jesus does not reach Jerusalem until the last week of his life. In John, the main scene of the ministry is Jerusalem and Judaea, with only occasional withdrawals to Galilee (2:1–13, 4:35–5:1, 6:1–7:14). In John, Jesus is in Jerusalem for a Passover which occurred at the same time as the cleansing of the Temple, as John tells the story (2:13); he is in Jerusalem at the time of an unnamed feast (5:1); he is there for the Feast of Tabernacles (7:2, 10); he is there at the Feast of Dedication in the wintertime (10:22). In fact, according to the Fourth Gospel, Jesus never left Jerusalem after that feast; after chapter 10 he is in Jerusalem all the time, which would mean a stay of months, from the wintertime of the Feast of the Dedication to the springtime of the Passover at which he was crucified.
In point of fact, in this particular matter John is surely right. The other gospels show us Jesus mourning over Jerusalem as the last week came on. ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’ (Matthew 23:37 = Luke 13:34). It is clear that Jesus could not have said that unless he had paid repeated visits to Jerusalem and made repeated appeals to it. It was impossible for him to say that on a first visit. In this, John is unquestionably right.
It was in fact this difference of scene which provided the great Church historian Eusebius with one of the earliest explanations of the difference between the Fourth Gospel and the other three. He said that in his day (about AD 300) many people who were scholars held the following view. Matthew at first preached to the Hebrew people. The day came when he had to leave them and go to other nations. Before he went, he set down his story of the life of Jesus in Hebrew, ‘and thus compensated those whom he was obliged to leave for the loss of his presence’. After Mark and Luke had published their gospels, John was still preaching the story of Jesus orally. ‘Finally he proceeded to write for the following reason. The three gospels already mentioned having come into the hands of all and into his hands too, they say that he fully accepted them and bore witness to their truthfulness; but there was lacking in them an account of the deeds done by Christ at the beginning of his ministry . . . They therefore say that John, being asked to do it for this reason, gave in his gospel an account of the period which had been omitted by the earlier evangelists, and of the deeds done by the Saviour during that period; that is, of the deeds done before the imprisonment of John the Baptist . . . John therefore records the deeds of Christ which were performed before the Baptist was cast into prison, but the other three evangelists mention the events which happened after that time . . . The Gospel according to John contains the first acts of Christ, while the others give an account of the latter part of his life’ (Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History, 5:24).
So then according to Eusebius there is no contradiction at all between the Fourth Gospel and the other three; the difference is due to the fact that the Fourth Gospel is describing a ministry in Jerusalem, at least in its earlier chapters, which preceded the ministry in Galilee, and which took place while John the Baptist was still at liberty. It may well be that this explanation of Eusebius is at least in part correct.
(3) John has a different account of the duration of Jesus’ ministry. The other three gospels, on the face of it, imply that it lasted only one year. Within the ministry, there is only one Passover Feast. In John, there are three Passovers: one at the cleansing of the Temple (2:13), one near the feeding of the 5,000 (6:4), and the final Passover at which Jesus went to the cross. According to John, the ministry of Jesus would take a minimum of two years, and probably a period nearer three years, to cover its events. Again, John is unquestionably right. If we read the other three gospels closely and carefully, we can see that he is right. When the disciples plucked the ears of corn (Mark 2:23), it must have been springtime. When the 5,000 were fed, they sat down on the green grass (Mark 6:39); therefore it was springtime again, and there must have been a year between the two events. There follows the tour through Tyre and Sidon, and the transfiguration. At the transfiguration, Peter wished to build three booths and to stay there. It is most natural to think that it was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths and that that is why Peter made the suggestion (Mark 9:5). That would make the date early in October. There follows the space between that and the last Passover in April. Therefore, behind the narrative of the other three gospels lies the fact that Jesus’ ministry actually did last for at least three years, as John represents it.
(4) It sometimes even happens that John differs in matters of fact from the other three. There are two outstanding examples. First, John puts the cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (2:13–22); the others put it at the end (Mark 11:15–17; Matthew 21:12–13; Luke 19:45–6). Second, when we come to study the narratives in detail, we will see that John dates the crucifixion of Jesus on the day before the Passover, while the other gospels date it on the day of the Passover.
We can never shut our eyes to the obvious differences between John and the other gospels.
John’s Special Knowledge
One thing is certain – if John differs from the other three gospels, it is not because of ignorance and lack of information. The plain fact is that, if he omits much that they tell us, he also tells us much that they do not mention. John alone tells of the marriage feast at Cana of Galilee (2:1–11); of the coming of Nicodemus to Jesus (3:1–15); of the woman of Samaria (4); of the raising of Lazarus (11); of the way in which Jesus washed his disciples’ feet (13:1–17); of Jesus’ wonderful teaching about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, which is scattered through chapters 14–17. It is only in John that some of the disciples really come alive. It is in John alone that