A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

John has much information about Jesus which is not to be found in Matthew, Mark and Luke. He seems genuinely to supplement their picture of Jesus’s life; yet that is not John’s main purpose, and his information is put to uses other than those in the Synoptics. He portrays from the outset a Jesus who, in the Gospel’s great opening hymn, is already fully identified with the pre-existing Word which was with God: John’s Gospel narrative is a progressive glorification of this figure, to the Cross and beyond. John’s Jesus, in the course of his majestic discourses, sets himself up in great metaphoric statements prefixed by ‘I am’, mystically seven in number like the days of creation. He is Bread, Light, Door, Shepherd, Resurrection/Life, Way/Truth/Life, Vine.72 He repeatedly refers to himself as the Son of God, which he does only once (and then only by implication) in the Synoptics, though they frequently put this title into the mouth of others.73 This Johannine Christ says little about forgiving one’s enemies, which is such a strong theme in the Synoptics.