An analysis of religious belief

by viscount John Russell Amberley

Let us enter into detail into some of the peculiar characteristics of the Jesus of John. In the first place, we may note that his miracles are altogether new. One of them at least is so astounding that no biographer who had heard of it could have passed it by. The raising of Lazarus is the greatest feat that Jesus ever performed. In other cases he brought persons who were supposed to be just dead to life, but skeptical Jews might have suspected that they had never in reality died at all. Ample precautions against such cavils were taken in the case of Lazarus. This man lived at Bethany, and his sisters, Mary and Martha, were devoted admirers of Jesus. These women sent word to Jesus, who had retired "beyond Jordan," to say that their brother was ill. He replied that this illness was for the glory of God. After he had heard of it he remained two days in the same place. Then, disregarding the dissuasions of the disciples, who reminded him that the Jews had recently sought to stone him, he proceeded towards Judea. He informed them in that obscure manner which he almost invariably affects in this Gospel, that Lazarus was asleep; but on their misunderstanding him, consented to speak plainly and say that he was dead. He added that for their sakes he was glad he had not been there, in order that they might believe—even the disciples' faith being apparently still in need of confirmation. On reaching Bethany, he found that Lazarus had been buried four days. Martha, who came to meet him, observed that had he been there, her brother would not have died, and that even now whatever he asked of God would be given. Jesus told her that her brother would rise again; a saying which she interpreted as referring to the general resurrection; but he replied that whoever believed in him would never die, and required of her an explicit declaration of her faith in this dogma. Martha evaded the inquiry by a profession of her conviction that he was the Christ and went to summon Mary. She too remarked that if he had been there Lazarus would not have died. Distressed by her distress, Jesus himself wept. Going to the grave, he ordered the stone which covered it to be removed, in spite of Martha's objection that putrefaction had set in. A curious scene followed. "Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, 'Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.'" We must suppose these last words to have been spoken sotto voce, for "the people which stood by" would have been little likely to believe in him had they known that the thanksgiving to God was a mere pious pretence, offered up for the purpose of impressing their imaginations by the event that was to follow. Knowing that his father always heard him, he certainly had no occasion to thank him on this one occasion; if indeed he could properly be thanked at all for taking the necessary measures to ensure the credit of his own son, in whom he desired mankind to believe, and who is over and over again described as one with himself. This is perhaps the only instance in any of the Gospels in which something like hypocrisy is ascribed to Jesus; in which he is represented as consciously acting a part for the benefit of the bystanders, and speaking simply with a view to effect. Happily for his reputation we are not obliged to believe in the accuracy of his biographer. After this he called loudly, "Lazarus, come forth." The dead man accordingly arose, and came forth from the tomb clad in his grave-clothes (Jo. xi. 1-46). His restoration to life was permanent, for we find him afterwards among the guests at a supper to which Jesus was invited (Jo. xii. 2).

Another singular miracle to which there is no allusion in any other Gospel is that which is here declared to be the first; the conversion of water into wine. Jesus was at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and when the wine provided for the entertainment had all been consumed, his mother informed him of the state of things. He gave her a repelling answer; but she told the servants to do what he bade them. He then ordered six waterpots to be filled with water, and the contents to be drawn. It was found that they contained wine of a superior quality to that at first provided (Jo. ii. 1-11).

The second miracle according to John is not unlike some of those recorded elsewhere. It consisted in the cure by a mere word, without visiting the place, of a nobleman's son who was on the point of death. This time also Jesus was at Cana, though the patient lay at Capernaum (Jo. iii. 46-54). Another cure was wrought at the pool of Bethesda, the healing virtues of which are known only to this Gospel. A man who had long been lying on its steps, too infirm to descend at the proper moment, was enjoined to rise and walk, which he did (Jo. v. 1-9). It is singular that although "a great multitude of impotent folk" were waiting at the pool, many of whom must needs have been kept long, since only one could be cured each time the water was troubled, this man alone was selected for the object of a miracle. Why were not all of them healed at once?

Not only are the most wonderful proofs of Christ's divinity contained in this Gospel unknown to the rest, but its dramatis personæ are in several respects altogether novel. Nathanael, whose difficulties about thinking that any good thing can come from Nazareth are overcome in a conversation with Jesus (Jo. i. 45-51); Nicodemus, the secret adherent who came by night and received instruction in the doctrine of regeneration (Jo. iii. 1-21), who at a later period supported him against the attacks of the Pharisees (Jo. vii. 51), and lastly brought spices to his interment (Jo. xix. 39); Lazarus, brother of Mary and Martha, who owed him his life (Jo. xi. 44; xii. 2); the woman of Sâmaria, to whom an important prophecy was made, and whose past life he knew by intuition (Jo. iv. 1-30); are all new personages, and they hold no mean place in the story. The immediate attendants on his person are no doubt the same; but the representation that there was one disciple "whom Jesus loved" above the rest, and to whom a greater intimacy was permitted (Jo. xiii. 23), is uncountenanced by anything in the other Gospels; and indicates a fixed purpose of exalting the apostle John above his compeers.

While the scene, the persons, and the plot are thus diverse, the style of the principal actor is in striking contrast to that which he employs elsewhere. Its most conspicuous characteristic is the continual recurrence to symbols. It is true that in the other Gospels Jesus frequently exchanges the direct explanation of his views for the indirect method of illustration. But an illustration serves to clear up the meaning of a speaker, a symbol to disguise it. Illustrations cast light upon the principal thesis; symbols merely darken it. And this is the difference between the synoptical and the Johannine Jesus. The one is anxious to be understood; the other, in appearance at least, is seeking to perplex. Hence the exchange of the parable for the symbol. The number of such symbols in John is considerable. Jesus is continually inventing new ones. Near the beginning of the Gospel, he explains to Nicodemus that it is needful to be born again; a statement by which Nicodemus is considerably perplexed (Jo. iii. 3, 4). But his symbols are more generally applied to himself or his relations to the Father. He is the bread of life or the bread of God (Jo. vi. 33-48); again, he is the living water (Jo. iv. 10), or he gives a water which prevents all future thirst (Jo. iv. 14); he is the true vine, his Father the husbandman, and his disciples the branches (Jo. xv. 1-5); elsewhere he is both the good shepherd and the door by which the sheep enter the fold (Jo. x. 7-16); he is the way, the truth, and the life (Jo. xiv. 6); he is the light that came into the world (Jo. xii. 46; iii. 19); or he is the Resurrection and the Life (Jo. xi. 25). John the Baptist, also, unlike the John of the other Gospels, adopts the same manner. Christ is spoken of by him as the Lamb of God, which takes away the sins of the world (Jo. i. 29); or as the Bridegroom whose voice he rejoiced to hear, while he himself was but the Bridegroom's friend (Jo. iii. 29). Sometimes "the Jews," as they are termed in this Gospel, are puzzled by the enigmatical style of Jesus, the sense of which they cannot unriddle. Thus, when he tells them that if they destroy the temple he will rebuild it in three days, they are naturally unable to perceive that he is speaking of the temple of his body (Jo. ii. 19-21). They murmured because he spoke of himself as the Bread that came down from heaven, nor was any explanation offered them beyond a reiteration of the same statement (Jo. vi. 41-51). Not only the Jews, but also many of his own partisans, were hopelessly perplexed by the statement that no one could have life in him who did not eat his flesh and drink his blood (Jo. vi. 53, 60), a statement which differs materially from that made at the passover (in the other Gospels), where the bread and wine were actually offered as signs of his flesh and blood, and the apostles alone (who were present) were required to receive them. At other times he confused them by mysterious intimations that he was going somewhere whither they could not come, and that they should seek him and be unable to find him (Jo. vii. 33-36; viii. 21, 22). On one occasion, his auditors were unable to comprehend his assertion that he must be lifted up, and requested him to explain it. The only reply was another enigma, namely, that the light was with them but a little while, and that they should believe in it while they had it (Jo. xii. 32-36). To such language they might well have retorted, that what they had from him was not light, but a twilight in which no object could be distinctly seen, and which never advanced towards clear daylight.

Closely connected with this tendency to speak in obscure images was his predilection for argument with the Jews on abstruse theological topics. In the other Gospels he teaches the people who surround him, and the subject of his teaching is generally the rules of moral conduct; comparatively seldom theology. In John he does not so much teach as dispute, and the subject of the dispute is not morals—a field he scarcely ever enters—but his personal pretensions. Upon these he carries on a continual wrangle, supporting his claims by his peculiar views of the divine nature and of his relation to it (Jo. v. 16-47; vi. 41-59; vii. 14-36; viii. 12-29; ix. 39-41; x. 19-37). In the same spirit the blind man whom he cures enters into a discussion with the Pharisees on the character of him who had restored his sight (Jo. ix. 24-34). The Jews are depicted as continually occupied about this question. Even their own officers receive from them a reproof for making a laudatory remark about him (Jo. vii. 47, 48), while Nicodemus, who interposes in arrest of judgment, is sharply asked whether he also is of Galilee (Jo. vii. 51-52).

The very best instruction of Jesus is not given, as in the other Gospels, to a multitude, but is reserved for a select circle of his own followers. It is in the 14th, 15th, and 16th chapters that he rises to the sublimest heights of his doctrine, and the whole of this remarkable discourse is delivered to the disciples after Judas has left the supper-table in order to betray him. The substance of his teaching is no less peculiar than its occasions. The writer conceives of him as holding an altogether singular relation to the Father, and that relation he represents his Christ as continually expounding and insisting upon as of vital moment. The Evangelist himself begins his work by a concise statement of his doctrine on this point. The Logos, he says, was with God in the beginning; the Logos was God. All things were made by it, and nothing was made without it. In it was life, and the life was the light of men. This Light came into the world, but the world did not know him. Even his own, whoever these may have been, did not receive him. To those who did receive him, he gave power to become the sons of God; and these were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The Logos was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, as of the only-begotten of the Father (Jo. i. 1-14).

The language of Christ is duly adjusted to this very speculative theory. Thus, he scandalizes the Jews by the bold assertion that he and his Father are one; and adds to their horror by further maintaining that he is in the Father, and the Father in him (Jo. x. 30, 38). Elsewhere, Philip is required to believe in the same truth. In reply to his ignorant request that he may be shown the Father, he is told that seeing Jesus is equivalent to seeing the Father. Moreover, the Father who dwells in Christ performs the works which are apparently done by Christ alone (Jo. xiv. 9-11). The disciples, too, are included in this mystic unity, for they are in Jesus in the same sense in which he is in God (Jo. xiv. 20; xvii. 21, 23). His Father, nevertheless, is greater than himself (Jo. xiv. 28). Jesus has been glorified with the Father before the world existed, and looks forward to a return to that glory. He wishes that those who have been given him on earth may be with him to behold the glory which God, who loved him before the foundation of the world, has given him. That glory he has given them, and they are to be one, even as he and his Father are one; he in them, and God in him (Jo. xvii. 5, 22-24).

After these preliminary observations, we need not dwell long on the historical incidents of the Gospel, of which there are but few. The meeting of Jesus with Andrew and Simon, and his reception of Nathanael, related in the first chapter, have already been noticed. It only remains to be said, that Nathanael was deceived by a prophecy which was not fulfilled; for at the end of the interview, Jesus, referring to his amazement that he had been discovered under the fig-tree, which had quite put him off his balance, tells him that he shall see greater things than these, and especially mentions among them the opening of the heavens and the descent of angels upon the Son of man. Nathanael never saw anything of the kind (Jo. i. 35-51).

The conversion of water into wine follows next. A peculiarity in the notions of this writer is evinced by the assertion that his mother and brothers went with him to Capernaum, for his family do not accompany him, according to any other statement, while here his mother not only is with him, but is aware that he is able to work a miracle (Jo. ii. 1-12). Jesus, after visiting Capernaum, proceeded for the passover to Jerusalem, where it is said that many believed in him because of his miracles. His expulsion of the money-changers, however, brought him into collision with the authorities of his nation, who asked him for a sign; a question to which he replied by the undertaking to rebuild the temple, if destroyed, in three days (Jo. ii. 13-25). But one of the Jewish rulers, named Nicodemus, was disposed to believe in his pretensions. This man came to him by night, and heard from him a long theological disquisition (Jo. iii. 1-21). Jesus then went into Judea, and remained there with his disciples baptizing his converts. John the Baptist is made to bear an emphatic testimony to his superiority (Jo. iii. 22-36). A visit to Sâmaria is the occasion for an interesting dialogue with a Sâmaritan woman who had come to draw water at a well; and her report leads the inhabitants to come out and see the prophet by whom she had been so much impressed.