WEBVTT 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:06.179 The Gospel of John is sometimes called the simple gospel. 00:00:06.679 --> 00:00:08.099 I don't think so. 00:00:08.419 --> 00:00:17.839 It is true that the simplicity of the language has caused a great many to stumble and call 00:00:17.839 --> 00:00:19.539 this the simple gospel. 00:00:20.199 --> 00:00:27.560 The fact of the matter is that there are many monosyllabic and disyllabic words that are 00:00:27.560 --> 00:00:28.400 in this gospel. 00:00:28.399 --> 00:00:34.000 If you just turn anywhere in the gospel, you find out that most of the words are just 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:35.719 one-syllable words. 00:00:36.179 --> 00:00:40.560 And it's unusual to find one that has three syllables in it. 00:00:40.960 --> 00:00:46.359 And because of that, why, a great many say, well, look, this is very simple. 00:00:46.560 --> 00:00:49.939 I won't have any difficulty of understanding it. 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:56.659 Well, let me give to you one of the simplest statements that you can find anywhere, and 00:00:56.659 --> 00:00:58.939 it's found in John 14, 20. 00:00:59.259 --> 00:01:04.299 It says, and ye in me, and I in you. 00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:09.560 Have you ever noticed every word there is a little monosyllabic word? 00:01:10.060 --> 00:01:11.099 One syllable. 00:01:11.679 --> 00:01:13.819 Some of them have just two letters. 00:01:13.819 --> 00:01:18.799 Actually, only two of them have three letters in a word. 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:26.739 And I think you could take any 60-year-old child, and you would take any word and ask him the 00:01:26.739 --> 00:01:29.699 meaning of each word here, and he could tell you. 00:01:29.700 --> 00:01:37.079 But did you know when you put them all together, and you read, and ye in me, and I in you, 00:01:37.640 --> 00:01:46.099 the most profound philosopher and the deepest theologian can never plumb the depths of the 00:01:46.099 --> 00:01:47.560 meaning of that statement. 00:01:48.100 --> 00:01:55.320 That's what I mean when I say, friends, we're coming to the most profound gospel of all, 00:01:55.319 --> 00:01:59.719 and I believe really the most difficult to understand. 00:02:00.039 --> 00:02:04.199 We get the surface meaning of it because we know the meaning of the words. 00:02:04.719 --> 00:02:07.939 But it doesn't mean that we know it by any means. 00:02:08.340 --> 00:02:13.740 And here is a gospel where we truly need the Lord Jesus to be our teacher. 00:02:14.280 --> 00:02:20.620 Now, let me say today some matters that are matters of introduction that ought to introduce 00:02:20.620 --> 00:02:22.080 us to this gospel. 00:02:22.759 --> 00:02:26.219 John the Apostle is the writer. 00:02:26.900 --> 00:02:33.180 He was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and he was the brother of James. 00:02:34.219 --> 00:02:42.700 And his authorship has been seriously questioned by the Tubingen School of Critics in Germany years 00:02:42.699 --> 00:02:52.780 ago, and this was taken up by a great many of the liberal school in this country because they have been 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:56.119 more or less copycats of the German school. 00:02:56.839 --> 00:03:05.759 But the objections that were raised have been fully answered by conservative scholarship, 00:03:05.759 --> 00:03:15.239 and the Johannine authorship today is received by competent and conservative Bible scholarship. 00:03:15.620 --> 00:03:18.179 So there's no question about that. 00:03:18.639 --> 00:03:26.299 I remember in seminary, and that's a long time ago, we had a young fellow in there that was quite a wag. 00:03:26.299 --> 00:03:33.219 He wasn't the greatest scholar that there ever was, but he did have an ability to get right to the 00:03:33.219 --> 00:03:35.240 nub of any matter. 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:42.340 And we had a course in which we studied the gospel of John to determine who was the writer. 00:03:43.079 --> 00:03:50.340 And we took up all the different suggestions that had been made, and then we took up the question 00:03:50.340 --> 00:03:51.800 of whether John wrote it. 00:03:51.800 --> 00:03:59.800 And when all the evidence was in, we came to the conclusion that John wrote the gospel of John. 00:03:59.800 --> 00:04:06.860 And this fellow, this wag in the class, he says, we just wasted a whole semester. 00:04:07.320 --> 00:04:13.439 He said, I believed and knew John wrote it when I began this course, and now I'm right back where 00:04:13.439 --> 00:04:14.020 it started. 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:18.060 And you can waste a whole lot of time, friends, with the liberals. 00:04:18.500 --> 00:04:24.620 They will take you down the garden pathway, I can assure you, and raise many objections and 00:04:24.620 --> 00:04:33.519 many questions, but I think you can reasonably not assume but know that John the apostle is 00:04:33.519 --> 00:04:35.500 the writer of this gospel. 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:41.759 And the early church fathers all ascribed the fourth gospel to John. 00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:46.240 Theophilus was bishop of Antioch about 180 A.D. 00:04:47.079 --> 00:04:49.780 Irenaeus lived about 190 A.D. 00:04:49.779 --> 00:04:57.559 He was a pupil of Polycarp, and Polycarp was a pupil of John himself, and then Clement of 00:04:57.559 --> 00:05:00.599 Alexandria over in Egypt, 200 A.D. 00:05:01.079 --> 00:05:06.519 And the Muratorian fragment says the fourth gospel is by John. 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:08.039 I don't know about you. 00:05:08.139 --> 00:05:11.879 I get a little weary today listening to the liberal. 00:05:12.079 --> 00:05:13.359 He bores me. 00:05:13.459 --> 00:05:18.899 If you want to know my viewpoint, I had to go to school to so many of them and listen to 00:05:18.899 --> 00:05:24.919 other dry lectures that I wish there was some way I could get even with them, because they 00:05:24.919 --> 00:05:29.779 certainly tortured me, and for no purpose, actually. 00:05:30.439 --> 00:05:34.239 Now, the date of this gospel is rather important. 00:05:34.879 --> 00:05:39.099 Some suppose that it's the last book of the New Testament to be written. 00:05:39.679 --> 00:05:43.799 It was written somewhere, of course, between 90 and 100 A.D. 00:05:43.800 --> 00:05:51.240 I think that John wrote in that period the gospel of John and the three epistles that bear his 00:05:51.240 --> 00:05:53.900 name, and also the book of Revelation. 00:05:54.480 --> 00:06:00.660 Now, I rather take the opinion that the epistles were written after the book of Revelation. 00:06:00.960 --> 00:06:03.680 That's just my own private judgment, by the way. 00:06:04.180 --> 00:06:09.879 And they were all written, though, during the last ten years of the life of the beloved 00:06:09.879 --> 00:06:10.500 apostle. 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:14.800 Thank you. 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:15.800 Thank you.