Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to John · About this commentary
That You May Believe
John 20:30-31
30 Therefore Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; · WEB
Two verses in which the writer says what he left out and why he put in what he did.
Therefore Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book John 20:30.
The first thing the conclusion admits is selection. There was more, a great deal more, and what the reader has is a chosen fraction — which is a strange thing for a writer to say and a necessary one for a witness.
It also settles what kind of book this is. Not a life, not a complete record, not an attempt at everything. Seven signs out of many, arranged.
In the presence of his disciples locates the evidence. The signs were done in front of people who are named in the book and were available to be asked.
But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name John 20:31.
The purpose is stated outright, which almost no ancient book does, and the whole of the Gospel can be checked against it.
There are two things to believe and they are one person. The Christ is the Jewish claim — the anointed king of David's line, which the book has argued from Nathanael's confession John 1:49 to the placard over the cross. The Son of God is the larger claim that got him killed John 19:7, and the one Thomas has just made in stronger form three verses earlier.
And the result is not information but life — which this book defined in the prayer as knowing God and the one he sent John 17:3. Believing is not the goal; it is the door.
In his name is the last phrase, and it returns to the prologue, where those who received him and believed in his name were given the right to become children of God John 1:12.
So the book ends its argument where it began it. Everything between — the wine, the wind at night, the woman at the well, the bread, the man born blind, the shepherd, the grave at Bethany, the basin, the vine, the trial, the cloths folded in an empty room — has been assembled to produce one thing in a reader who was not there.
And the you is singular in the Greek. Whatever crowd the book expects, it is addressing one person at a time.
settled What this mark means