'And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples,
which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye
might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that
believing ye might have life through His name.'--JOHN XX. 30, 31.
It is evident that these words were originally the close of this
Gospel, the following chapter being an appendix, subsequently added by
the writer himself. In them we have the Evangelist's own acknowledgment
of the incompleteness of his Gospel, and his own statement of the
purpose which he had in view in composing it. That purpose was first of
all a doctrinal one, and he tells us that in carrying it out he omitted
many things that he could have put in if he had chosen. But that
doctrinal purpose was subordinate to a still further aim. His object
was not only to present the truth that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of
God, but to present it in such a way as to induce his readers to
believe in that Christ. And he desired that they might have faith in
order that they might have life.
Now, it is a very good old canon in judging of a book that 'in every
work' we are to 'regard the writer's end,' and if that simple principle
had been applied to this Gospel, a great many of the features in it
which have led to some difficulty would have been seen to be naturally
explained by the purpose which the Evangelist had in view.
But this text may be applied very much more widely than to John's
Gospel. We may use it to point our thoughts to the strange silences and
incompletenesses of the whole of Revelation, and to the explanation of
these incompletenesses by the consideration of the purpose which it all
had in view. In that sense I desire to look at these words before us.