I have long suspected that one of the reasons for the apparent want of progressive development in the Fourth Gospel has been the ambiguity of its use of the word ‘believe.’ We are told from the first that disciples and others ‘believed,’ and it is natural enough that we should take the word in the full sense of complete conversion and acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah. But there can be little doubt that to do so is to read into the word a great deal more than the writer intended. We do not make sufficient allowance for the extreme simplicity of his vocabulary. He has but one word to denote all the different stages of belief. We must attend closely to the context if we would see when he means the first dawning of belief and when he means full conviction. Many times over he uses the word of what must have been a quite transient impression. The impression might be confirmed and become rooted, or it might pass rapidly away. As applied to members of the Twelve the word denotes successive stages of acceptance, culminating—but even then only provisionally—in St. Peter’s confession. As applied to the Samaritans and to the mixed crowds in Galilee and Jerusalem, the word probably does not cover more than faint stirrings of curiosity and emotion which lightly came and lightly passed away. One example of the use of the word is especially interesting. The writer is speaking of the visit of Peter and the unnamed disciple to the tomb, and he tells how, after Peter had entered, the other disciple also entered, ‘and he saw, and believed’ (xx. 8); but he immediately adds: ‘For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.’ We might perhaps paraphrase: ‘The wonder of the resurrection began to dawn upon them, though they were not prepared for it. At a later date they came to understand that prophecy had distinctly pointed to it, and that the whole mission of the Messiah would have been incomplete without it: but as yet this was hidden from them. They saw that something mysterious had happened, and they felt that what had happened was profoundly important; as yet they could not say more. The first step towards a full belief had been taken, though the full belief itself was still in the future.’
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.
III. The Nature of the Discourses.
Another of the objections brought against the Fourth Gospel that is not without a certain amount of foundation is that from the nature of the Discourses. It is said with some degree of truth that the discourses put into the mouth of our Lord in this Gospel are different from those in the Synoptics. We notice at once that the parables, which contribute so much to our conception of the outward form and manner of our Lord’s teaching, have dropped out. What St. John calls by that name, although similar, is not exactly the same thing. Many of the discourses are longer; for instance, that which is apparently addressed to Nicodemus in chap. iii, the discourse after the healing of the impotent man in chap. v, the discourse in the synagogue at Capernaum in chap. vi, and the last discourses in chaps. xiv-xvii. And we observe further that the style of many parts of these discourses, while it is not like that which we find in the Synoptic Gospels, corresponds remarkably with the style of St. John’s Epistles.
It is not the case that the speeches in the Fourth Gospel are systematically longer than those in the Synoptics. We perhaps have an impression that they are; but, if so, it is not borne out by the facts. For the proof of this I may refer to the statistics carefully worked out by Dr. Drummond on p. 24. There is no doubt that the speeches of our Lord were, as Justin said, ‘short and concise.’ They had nothing in common with the elaborate compositions and rounded periods of Greek rhetoric. The type on which they were modelled was wholly different. We find the nearest parallel to it in the so-called ‘Sayings of the Jewish Fathers’ (Pirke Aboth). Each saying is a sort of aphorism; and a longer discourse is only a string of aphorisms, unless it takes the form of a simple narrative or description, like the parables in the Synoptic Gospels or allegories, like those of the Good Shepherd and the Vine and its Branches, in the Fourth Gospel.