The Gospel According to John

John was the last to write a Gospel, and his is the most theological of the four. The other three are very similar in their content, enough so that they're considered the Synoptic Gospels (from the Greek word sunoptikos, meaning summary). John, who wrote his Gospel much later than the others, was writing for a general Christian audience. He presumed that people had already heard the other Gospels, and wrote a more in-depth, advanced version of Jesus's life and words. As a metaphor, if Matthew, Mark, and Luke's Gospels were college 101 textbooks, John's is a 500-level course.

John set the tone by starting his Gospel off with a philosophical concept of pre-existence: Before Jesus was conceived by Mary, he existed from all eternity in his divinity as the second person of the Holy Trinity. The first line of the Gospel According to John is: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." This is a very theological concept. John wished his audience to see Jesus as actually being the Word of God. He then continues: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." He was saying that Jesus was the incarnate word, that is, the Word of God actually becoming a physical man.

If the phrase "In the beginning" sounds familiar, it's also the first line of the Book of Genesis. According to Genesis 1:3, God said "Let there be light and there was light." In other words, God created by simply speaking the Word. John built on this in his Gospel by saying Jesus was the Word. The Word of God wasn't a thing, but an actual person. Just as God said the word and light was created, so too was Jesus able to cure the sick and dead by simply speaking.