THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN

Introduction

Author: John, the Apostle, one of the inner circle of Jesus’ disciples

Date: around A.D. 90.

The Purpose: John 20:31

John 20:31 ESV

but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition) Date and Occasion

The polemic emphases of John’s gospel suggest that at its writing, as during Jesus’ ministry, opposition to its witness to Him as the Son of God was coming from Jewish opponents who believed that its Christology was a blasphemous contradiction of the monotheism revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures (Deut. 6:4; Is. 43:10, 11; etc.). The gospel’s insistence that the Word, who was God, “became flesh and dwelt among us” as the supreme revelation of God (1:1, 14, 18) probably also has in view the error of proto-Gnostic dualism, which viewed the material world as intrinsically defiled and unfit for contact with the divine (cf. 1 John 4:1–3; 5:6–11; Col. 1:15–20; 2:8, 9). Thus, this gospel bears its witness in answer both to Jewish and to Greek objections, inviting its readers from various backgrounds to receive eternal life in the knowledge of the Father and of Jesus Christ His Son (17:3).