John 20:30,31

John 20:30

I. We have here set forth the incompleteness of Scripture. Nations and men appear on its pages abruptly, rending the curtain of oblivion, and striding to the front of the stage for a moment; and then they disappear, swallowed up of night. It has no care to tell the stories of any of its heroes, except for so long as they were the organs of that Divine breath, which, breathed through the weakest reed, makes music. The self-revelation of God, not the acts and fortunes of even His noblest servants, is the theme of the Book. It is unique in the world's history, unique in what it says, and no less unique in what it does not say.

II. Notice the more immediate purpose which explains all these gaps and inconsistencies. John's Gospel, and the other three Gospels, and the whole Bible, New Testament and Old, have this for their purpose, to produce in men's hearts the faith in Jesus as the Christ and as the Son of God. Christ, the Son of God, is the centre of Scripture; and the Book whatever may be the historical facts about its origin, its authorship and the date of the several portions of which it is composed the Book is a unity, because there is driven right through it, like a core of gold, either in the way of prophecy and onward-looking anticipation, or in the way of history and grateful retrospect, the reference to the one "Name that is above every Name," the Name of the Christ the Son of God.

III. Notice the ultimate purpose of the whole. Scripture is not given to us merely to make us know something about God in Christ, nor only in order that we may have faith in the Christ thus revealed to us; but for a further end, great, glorious, but not distant namely, that we may have life in His Name. Life is deep, mystical, inexplicable by any other words than itself. It includes pardon, holiness, well-being, immortality, heaven; but it is more than they all. Union with Christ in His Sonship, will bring life into dead hearts. He is the true Prometheus who has come from heaven with fire, the fire of the Divine life in the reed of His humanity, and He imparts it to us all if we will. He lays Himself upon us, as the prophet laid himself upon the little child in the upper chamber; and lip to lip, and beating heart to dead heart, He touches our death, and it is quickened into life.

A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart,p. 131.

References: John 20:30; John 20:31. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvii., No. 1631; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines,p. 78; F. D. Maurice, Gospel of St. John,p. 443; J. Wordsworth, Church of England Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 233; Homilist,3rd series, vol. iv., p. 233.