This difference between the Synoptists
and St. John can be partly accounted for by the fact that St. John's
Gospel contains much more of the instruction given by our Lord to His
intimate friends, and that this instruction was naturally more profound
than that which was given to the multitude. But there is another
reason for the difference. If we attend to such passages as xiv.
15-21, 25-26; xv. 26-27, we see that our Lord teaches that there are
two manifestations of His Person, one during the time between His birth
and His death, and the other after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is not a substitute {95} for an absent Christ; His coming
brings with it an inward presence of Christ within the Christian soul
(xiv. 18). By the aid of the Spirit, St. John condenses and interprets
the language of our Lord in a manner which can be understood by the
simplest of simple souls who live the inner life. In St. John we find
a writer who is writing when Jesus spoke no longer in parables and
proverbs, but "plainly" (xvi. 25, 29). He records the teaching of
Jesus, as it had shaped itself _in_ his own mind, but not so much _by_
his own mind as by perpetual communion with the ascended Christ.

[Sidenote: Character and Contents.]

We have noted on p. 31 the fact that St. John's Gospel shows that he
was acquainted with facts in the Synoptic Gospels which he does not
himself narrate. Yet the broad difference between the character of the
Synoptic writers and that of St. John is that the Synoptists are
historical, he is mystical. We do not mean that St. John does not
trouble about historical accuracy. His history is often more minute
than that of the Synoptists. But his purpose is to bring his readers
into deeper life through union with the God who is in Christ and is
Christ. The true mystic ever desires to maintain the knowledge of this
inward union in life with God. It is a knowledge which is made
possible by obedience, made perfect by love, and causes not new
ecstasies, but a new character. St. John adjusts all his material to
this one purpose. "These are written that ye may believe that Jesus is
the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in His
name" (xx. 31).

The Introduction or Prologue (i. 1-18) teaches that Jesus Christ is
that personal manifestation of God to whom the Jews had given the name
of the Word. The Palestinian Jews were accustomed to describe God
acting upon the world by