What advice do you have for those studying the Gospel of John?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding.

I am interested to see that you are studying the Gospel of John. You might like to notice that the Gospel consists of four major visits to Jerusalem that the Lord Jesus made on the occasion of the Jewish religious festivals.

John 2:13 to the end of chapter 4 relates his journey to Jerusalem and back again to Galilee for the Feast of Passover. If, then, you recall that after Israel was delivered from Egypt through the blood of the Passover lamb, they experienced the almighty power of God in the miracle of the Red Sea; and thereafter, when they were called upon to contribute their money, material, skill and labour to build the tabernacle for God, they willingly gave freely much more than was actually needed.

But when our Lord went to the Feast of Passover on this his first journey to Jerusalem, he found a very sad state of affairs in the temple. The priests and the merchants, instead of giving freely to the work of the temple, were making great sums of money out of the people by selling all sorts of religious things to them at a very high price. Our Lord was very angry at this, because it was a denial of the fact that God's salvation is a free gift, as he eventually pointed out to Nicodemus (see John 3:16), and to the Samaritan woman (see John 4:10). Incidentally, it is interesting to notice that, in John 3:16, the giver is God and the gift is the Son of God; but in John 4:10 the giver is Christ and the gift is the Holy Spirit.

In the temple, Christ not only cleansed and reformed the old system of worship (see John 2:14–17), but he also announced a new kind of temple and a completely new form of worship that would result from his resurrection from the dead (see John 2:18–22). Then, in talking to the Samaritan woman, he once more emphasized the old form of worship but also announced the giving of the new kind of worship (see John 4:21–24). The glory of the new kind of worship therefore is, in the first place, the resurrection of Christ and the new birth of which he spoke to Nicodemus; and, in the second place, it is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

In chapter John 3:23–36, we listen to the famous preacher John the Baptist, as he talks to his disciples about the principles that must be followed in the service of God. Again, in John 4:31–42, we listen to Christ as he expounds to his disciples the principles that motivated him in his work for God, and that motivate us likewise.

So, in this first journey, we find the interesting situation that God, whom the Jews believed they were worshipping in the temple at Jerusalem, had now become incarnate, and was going up with the worshippers to the temple at Jerusalem. He was listening to their worship, reading their hearts and pointing out to them where their worship and service of God had gone very much astray; and then in addition, he was presenting himself as the great spiritual reality, which the symbols and rituals that God had ordained in the Old Testament pointed towards. It is the sad fact that many of those people resented his criticisms of their errors and also refused to accept him as the great reality, and simply clung to their religious symbols.

When we observe this, it carries for us a very potent lesson. In chapters 2 and 3 of the book of the Revelation, our Lord, in a very similar fashion, visits the Christian churches, and there commends what he can commend, but also criticizes what is at fault. We ourselves need to listen to his assessment of our worship and service of the Lord: the account of our Lord's inspection of the Jews' worship in their temple, and of the Samaritan worship in Samaria, contain many lessons that are highly relevant to the spiritual situation in certain branches of the church.

You may care to consider, therefore, the other visits which our Lord made to Jerusalem, particularly the one that was made on the occasion of the Feast of Tabernacles (see chapters 7–10).

Consider all the rituals that went on at that feast (see Leviticus 23), and the additional rituals which the rabbis have added over the course of the centuries; such as the appearing of the water at the base of the altar, in memory of the water that God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness from the rock; and the lights which they lit in the temple during that week, in memory of the pillar of fire that guided the Israelites in the wilderness. Consider too the remarks made by the prophets like Isaiah (ch. 25) and Zechariah (ch. 14), who saw in the Feast of Tabernacles a prophecy of the end times. In this context then, our Lord's preaching at this Feast of Tabernacles becomes highly relevant.

Another thing that you might like to consider are the six stories in John in which women are prominent. They are stories that the other Gospel writers do not include in their Gospels—or, if they do, they only mention them briefly; whereas John tells the stories in detail. If you make a list of these stories, I think you will find that they all involve a common subject, namely that of relationship.

With warmest greetings,