Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 30:118 (Apr 1873)
Article: Christian Ernest Luthardt On The Design Of St. John’s Gospel
Author: Caspar Rene Gregory

BSac 30:118 (April 1873) p. 237

Christian Ernest Luthardt On The Design Of St. John’s Gospel

Caspar Rene Gregory

(Continued from p. 29)

The Real Design of St. John’s Gospel

Let us first gather together the results of the preceding discussions as to the final aim of the book.

The fourth Gospel takes for granted the existence of the other Gospels; but it does not intend to complete them, or to give additions to them. It is no more a collection of remarkable things out of the life of Christ than the first three are. It is a doctrinal treatise. As such it has no thought of bringing forth or preaching a new doctrine, as Reuss implies when he calls it a sermon, nor is it the expression of a newly risen view of the history or of the person of Christ; it does not preach a new doctrine which arose, whether outside or inside of the bounds of the Christian church; nor does it express, as Baumgarten-Crusius thinks,1 a new view which came out in the church, or which, it may be, sprang up in the person of the writer, and was approved and spread abroad by the apostolic authority. Nor can the book be explained by the development of πίστις to γνῶσις within the church, or by accommodation to the false gnosis outside of it. The point that it has in view is πίστις. This is the only point. The Gospel in hand does not teach or develop an idea taken from somewhere else, or thought out independently, or drawn out of the history. It presents to us the person of Christ. And this it does without regard to the distinction between the Gentile Christian element and

BSac 30:118 (April 1873) p. 238

the Jewish Christian element of the church of Christ, and without regard to the different needs growing from this distinction and then present with it. The one whole Christ is made known to the one united church in his fullest essential power and most entire significance.2

The book itself gives the best confirmation of this. Its whole character shows that it is an historical writing; and the result of our inquiries as to the mode of presentation was that it handles the history as doctrine. The question is, What does it mean to teach? It is a poor thing to stop the search after the final aim of a book at the very beginning of it, if that part does not speak clearly about the aim, and much more, if that is so shaped as to be open to the most manifold interpretations. On the other hand, if the conclusion of the book is clear, it decides and informs us about the whole, and, of course, then, about the beginning. Now, whether we look at th...