iii. Traces of Development in the Fourth Gospel.
So far I have not questioned the indictment that the Gospel is wanting in historical development. All that I have done has been to urge some mitigating or qualifying considerations. But I believe that the extent within which it can be said that there is no development, and that the end appears from the beginning, is often much exaggerated. The unfavourable instances are observed and the favourable are neglected. If, instead of fixing our attention upon what is said of the disciples in the first few chapters, we were to look at the attitude of those who are not disciples from chap. vii onwards, we should find a state of things differing somewhat from our expectations, and one that really bears out the Synoptic version of the great reserve and reticence with which the claims of Christ were prosecuted.
Use has already been made of the opening paragraph of chap. vii to show that in the conception of the Fourth Evangelist as well as in that of his predecessors the ministry of Christ had been in the main carried on in a province and not in Judaea or Jerusalem. The evidence of the same passage, and indeed of the whole chapter, is not less clear that He did not go about definitely proclaiming Himself as the Messiah, but that He left His claim to be inferred, and doubtfully inferred, from the indirect implications of His teaching. The brethren of Jesus insinuate that He shrank from putting His claims really to the test. It was a paradox to suppose that He could work in secret, and yet expect public recognition. If He desired this He should go about the right way to obtain it; He should come forward to the front of the stage, where He could be seen and known (vii. 3, 4). On the other hand, the answer which the brethren received implies that the time for this complete manifestation was not yet come; it was to come before His work was finished, but the hour had not yet struck.
Again, when Jesus does at last go up to the feast, the crowds begin to speculate about Him; but their speculations are as yet quite vague. Was He really a good man or a deceiver? (ver. 12). Had He really a mission from God? (vers. 15-18). Only by degrees do some throw out the tentative question, ‘Can it be that the rulers indeed know that this is the Christ?‘ They throw out the question, but they seem inclined for themselves to answer it in the negative (vers. 26, 27). Others think that even the Christ, when He came, would not do greater wonders (ver. 31). As these discussions went on, some were emboldened to go further, and expressed the belief that Jesus was really that great Prophet whom they were expecting. Yet others—but still tentatively—returned to the idea that He may be the Christ. But no sooner do they suggest this than they are met by the reply that the Christ must be born at Bethlehem, and cannot come out of Galilee. Thus there is a division of opinion, and no advance is made (vers. 40-3). This tentative and interrogative attitude is not confined to the crowds. Even in the Sanhedrin itself, though the great majority scornfully reject Him, there is at least one (Nicodemus) who pleads that the accused should be heard before He is condemned. He too is met by the same test; ‘out of Galilee ariseth no prophet’ (vers. 45-52).
It is very clear that no sharply defined issue was set before the people. They are left to draw their own conclusions; and they draw them as well as they can by the help of such criteria as they have. But there is no Entweder-oder—either Messiah or not Messiah—peremptorily propounded by Jesus Himself.
Nor does this state of things last only to the Feast of Tabernacles. It still continues at the end of the December before the Passion. At the Feast of the Encaenia, as Jesus is walking in Solomon’s Porch, the Jews are represented as coming round Him and saying to Him, ‘how long dost thou hold us in suspense (τὴν ψυχὴν ἡμῶν αἴρεις)? If thou art the Christ, tell us plainly’ (x. 24). It is evident that up to this point, so near the end, the claim of Jesus to be the Christ had never been so plainly made as to be a matter of notoriety. It is true that Jesus replied, ‘I told you, and ye believed not.’ The reference no doubt is to the rather enigmatical sayings found in this Gospel. But even from these it would seem that the inference was not direct and inevitable; and our Lord is represented as going on to appeal not to His words, but to His works (ver. 25). As to the nature of the sayings, there will be more to be said later. But the broad conclusion seems to be that the writer of this Gospel is as clearly conscious as any of the Synoptists of the real course of events, and that he too was well aware that the Messiah, when He came, had not forced a peremptory claim upon an unwilling people. It may thus be seen that the anticipated confessions of the early chapters, whatever we may otherwise think of them, are really subordinate and (so to speak) accidental; the main course of the ministry is not conceived differently in the Fourth Gospel and in the Synoptics.