(3) Divinity in John.—In the second place, all four Gospels, if they present Jesus as a man, also present him as something far more than a man. With regard to the Gospel of John, of course the matter is unmistakable. The very first verse reads: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Jesus according to John was plainly no product of the world, but God come in the flesh. John 1:14. The teaching of Jesus himself, as it is reported in the Fourth Gospel, is concerned with the relation of perfect unity that exists between the Father and the Son.
(4) Divinity in the Synoptists.—In the Synoptists the supernatural character of Jesus is somewhat less on the surface. His teaching, as the Synoptists report it, is largely concerned not directly with his own person, but with the kingdom that he came to found. Even his Messiahship is often kept in the background; the demons are often commanded not to reveal it.
A closer examination, however, reveals the essential unity between the Synoptists and John. If the supernatural character of Jesus appears in the Synoptists less plainly on the surface, it is really no less pervasive at the center. It does not so often form the subject of direct exposition, but it is everywhere presupposed. The doing by Jesus of what only God can do, Mark 2:5,7; the sovereign way in which he legislates for the kingdom of God, Matt. 5:17-48; his unearthly holiness and complete lack of any consciousness of sin; the boundlessness of his demand for obedience, Luke 9:57-62; his expected freedom from limitations of time and place, Matt. 28:20; the absolutely central place which he claims for himself as ruler and judge; the substantiation of all his lofty claims by wonderful power over the forces of nature—these are only indications chosen almost at random of what is really plain upon every page of the Synoptic Gospels, that the Jesus who is there described is no mere human figure but a divine Saviour of the world. The invitation of Matt. 11:28-30, which is typical of the Synoptic teaching, would have been absurd on the lips of anyone but the Son of God.
Moreover, the divine nature of Jesus is not merely implied in the Synoptic Gospels; there are times when it even becomes explicit. The relation of perfect mutual knowledge that exists between Jesus and the Father, Matt. 11:27, reveals a perfect unity of nature. The Jesus of the Synoptists, as well as the Jesus of John, might say, "I and the Father are one."
4. THE MANNER OF JESUS' TEACHING
The Synoptic Gospels, therefore, imply everywhere exactly the same Jesus who is more expressly presented in the Gospel of John. If, then, there is a contradiction between the Synoptists and John, it can be concerned only with the manner of Jesus' teaching. The Synoptists as well as John present Jesus as a supernatural person, it is said, but unlike John they represent him as keeping his own person in the background.
Even here, however, maturer consideration shows that the difference does not amount to anything like contradiction. May not the same person have spoken the discourses of the Fourth Gospel and also those of the Synoptists? It must be remembered that the ministry of Jesus was varied, and that the first three evangelists confine themselves almost exclusively to one phase of it. In the public Galilean ministry, which the Synoptists describe, it was necessary for Jesus to keep even his Messiahship for a time in the background. Publication of it, owing to the false political conception which the Jews had of the Messiah's work, would have been fatal to Jesus' plan. Here, as so often, the Fourth Gospel explains the other three. After the feeding of the five thousand, John tells us, the crowd wanted to take Jesus by force and make him a king. John 6:15. Popularity was dangerous. Jesus could not proclaim himself publicly as the Messiah, until by explaining the spiritual nature of the kingdom he had prepared the people for the kind of Messiah which it was his mission to be.
Of course, it is difficult for us to understand at every point just why Jesus acted as he did. All that we are now maintaining is that the considerations just adduced, and others like them, show that it is perfectly conceivable that Jesus, before his intimate disciples and in Jerusalem and at a special crisis, John, ch. 6, adopted a method of teaching which in the greater part of the Galilean ministry he considered out of place. There is room in a true narrative of Jesus' life both for the Synoptists and for John.
5. THE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF JESUS
Jesus was many-sided. He was Lawgiver, he was Teacher, he was Healer, he was Ruler, he was Saviour. He was man and he was God. The Gospels have presented him in the richness of his mysterious person. Modern historians are less comprehensive. They have been offended at the manifoldness of the Gospel picture. They have endeavored to reduce Jesus to the level of what they can comprehend. But their effort has been a failure. After the supposed contradictions have been removed, greater contradictions remain; and the resulting figure is at any rate too small to account for the origin of Christianity. The partial Jesus of modern criticism, despite his comparative littleness, is a monstrosity; the comprehensive Jesus of the Gospels, though mysterious, is a self-evidencing and life-giving fact.