(4) Beneath the surface of the similarity there is a considerable difference between the
language of Christ and the language of his disciple. John never attributes to Christ the designation
Logos, which he uses so prominently in the Prologue and the first Epistle. This is very significant,
and shows his conscientious care. He distinguished his own theology from the teaching of his
Master, no matter whether he borrowed the term Logos from Philo (which cannot be proven), or
coined it himself from his reflections on Old Testament distinctions between the hidden and the
revealed God and Christ’s own testimonies concerning his relation to the Father. The first Epistle
of John is an echo of his Gospel, but with original matter of his own and Polemical references to
the anti-Christian errors of big day. "The phrases of the Gospel," says Westcott, "have a definite
historic connection: they belong to circumstances which explain them. The phrases in the Epistle
are in part generalizations, and in part interpretations of the earlier language in view of Christ’s
completed work and of the experience of the Christian church."
As to the speeches of the Baptist, in the fourth Gospel, they keep, as the same writer remarks,
strictly within the limits suggested by the Old Testament. "What he says spontaneously of Christ
is summed up in the two figures of the ’Lamb’ and the ’Bridegroom,’ which together give a
comprehensive view of the suffering and joy, the redemptive and the completive work of Messiah
under prophetic imagery. Both figures appear again in the Apocalypse; but it is very significant
that they do not occur in the Lord’s teaching in the fourth Gospel or in St. John’s Epistles."
(5) There are not wanting striking resemblances in thought and style between the discourses
in John and in the Synoptists, especially Matthew, which are sufficient to refute the assertion that
the two types of teaching are irreconcilable.^1056 The Synoptists were not quite unfamiliar with the
other type of teaching. They occasionally rise to the spiritual height of John and record briefer
sayings of Jesus which could be inserted without a discord in his Gospel. Take the prayer of
thanksgiving and the touching invitation to all that labor and are heavy laden, in Matt. 11:25–30.
The sublime declaration recorded by Luke 10:22 and Matthew 11:27: "No one knoweth the Son,
save the Father; neither doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son
willeth to reveal him," is thoroughly Christ-like according to John’s conception, and is the basis
of his own declaration in the prologue: "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son,
who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him"(John 1:18). Jesus makes no higher claim
in John than he does in Matthew when he proclaims: "All authority hath been given unto me in
heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:18). In almost the same words Jesus says in John 17:2: "Thou hast
given him power over all flesh."
On the other hand, John gives us not a few specimens of those short, pithy maxims of oriental
wisdom which characterize the Synoptic discourses.^1057(^1056) "Si Jésus," says Renan, "parlait comme le veut Matthieu, il n’a pu parler comme le veut Jean."
(^1057) John 1:26, 43; 2:19; 4:44; 6:20, 35, 37; 12:13, 25, 27; 18:16, 20:20:19, 23. See the lists in Godet, I. 197sq., and Westcott,
p. lxxxii sq. The following are the principal parallel passages:
John 2:19: Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
Matt. 26:61: This man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. Cf. Mark 14:58; 15:29.
3:18: He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already.
Mark 16:16: He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned.
4:44: For Jesus himself testified that a prophet hath no honor in his own country.
Matt. 15:57: But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house. Cf.
Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24
5:8: Jesus saith unto him, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk.
A.D. 1-100.