Studies in the Gospel According to John D ^ w t - 1 By R. A. Torrey, D.D. J NTRODUCTORY Notes. We are to begin at the beginning of the Gospel and go to the end. We shall not at- tack. But each attack has only served to bring into clearer light the certainty that John did write this gospel. The critics have exhausted their armory and yet have been unable to discover one vulnerable point. Why they should wish to discredit the' gospel is plain enough for (to use the words of Canon Liddon) "it is the most conspicuous attestation of our Lord's Godhead."
tempt to bring out everything in the Gospel. That would be impossible, for this book above every book in the Bible is an exhaustless mine in which are hidden the inexhaustible treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. I have read the Gospel of John in Qreek and English and , German more fre- quently than I have read any other book in the Bible. I have pondered its words as I have pondered those of no other book. I have studied more German, English and Swiss Commentaries upon this book than any other book, and yet to this day I take up the teaching of the book with fear and trembling. 1 tremble lest I omit much that I ought to see and bring others to see. The Author. The book beyond a reas- onable or candid doubt was written by John, the beloved disciple, the younger son of Zebedee and Salome. «tSalome, his mother, was in all probability the sister of Mary, the mother of our Lord. (Cf. Matt. 28:55, 56, with John 19:25), and thus John was a first cousin of Jesus. This fact throws light on numerous in- cidents recorded not only by John but by the synoptists as well. It was never seriously questioned until the close of the 18th century that John the apostle was the author of the Fourth Gospel. In 380 A. D., Epiphanius writes that there was a very small party who ascribed it to Cerinthus, a heretical teacher who lived in Ephesus at the same time that John did, and whom John sternly opposed. This obscure party had no reason for ascribing it to Cernithus except that they themselves did not like its teachings. In recent years the ra- tionalistic school and deniers of the deity of the Lord Jesus have sought to discredit this book with a persistence and laboriousness and ingenuity that they have displayed in attacking the integrity of no other book. Time and again they have been completely over- whelmed and maintained a measure of sulky silence, but only until they had regained their breath for another at-
Both the external and internal evi- dences that John wrote the book are conclusive and decisive. It is not our purpose here to go into them exhaust- ively. That is unnecessary. It has been done by many and to do it again would be to thresh out old straw. But to put the case very briefly and inadequately. 1. External evidence. Ireneus un- questionably accepted the book as a gen- uine work of the Apostle John. But Ireneus in early life was in intimate contact with Polycarp (born 70 A. D.) who was a disciple of John himself. So intimate was Ireneus' acquaintance with Polycarp that he wrote in 177 A. D. "I can describe the very places in which the blessed Polycarp used to sit when he discoursed, and his goings out and his comings in, and his manner of life and his personal appearance, and the discourses which he held before the peo- ple, and how he would describe his intercourse with John and with the rest who had seen the Lord, and how he would relate his words. And whatso- ever things he had heard from them about the Lord and about his miracles, Polycarp, as having received them from eye witnesses of the life of the Word, would relate altogether in accordance with the scriptures." It is impossible that Ireneus could have received this gospel as being written by John, as he unquestionably did if it had not been acknowledged by his teacher, Polycarp, who had been himself a disciple of John Justin Martyr about the middle of the second century refers frequently to ".Memoirs" composed by the apostles and applies to them the name of "Gos- pels." That he refers to the four gos- pels which we have in our Bible is evi- dent from the fact that almost all thç
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