In order to read the Gospel of St. John with some intelligence, it is necessary to understand its purpose and its plan. For in the whole range of literature there is composition which is a more perfect work of art, or which more rigidly excludes whatever does t subserve its main end. From the first word to the last there is paragraph, sentence, or expression which is out of its place, or with which we could dispense. Part hangs together with part in perfect balance. The sequence may at times be obscure, but sequence there always is. The relevancy of this or that remark may t at first sight be apparent, but irrelevancy is impossible to this writer. The object which the Evangelist had in view in writing this Gospel we are t left to find out for ourselves. He explicitly says that his purpose in writing was to promote the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (chap. xx. 31). This purpose, he judges, he will best accomplish, t by writing an essay, r by framing an abstract argument in advocacy of the claims of Jesus, but by reproducing in his Gospel those manifestations of His glory which elicited faith in the first disciples and in others.
