Ok, I guess someone out there (he goes by "BK"; what does that mean?) was searching the internet looking for someone like me making statements such as: "John was "the disciple whom Jesus loved"; and "what he wrote in his gospel he heard and learned..."; to refute them. To see what BK wrote read his comment on my last post.
Ok, point taken; and I actually agree; one cannot be completely certain that John did or did not write the book of the new testament that we commonly know as 'the gospel according to John' or 'the book of John', or 'the gospel of John'; you have to come to other conclusions when you really look at the book, and all the other texts that support BK's premise.
I am open to be corrected when I'm wrong if the argument is valid; and if the motivation behind it is the adherence to the absolute truth; this fact I have demonstrated since the beginning, in fact, this is the reason I started writing this blog in the first place. Knowing the truth is what really matters, knowing the truth can only be accomplished by knowing God and so knowing God is what really matters; and knowing God is only possible if God reveals Himself by Jesus: Mat 11:27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
Does knowing that John the apostle did not write the gospel of John affect the absolute truth? Is changing the name of the author of that gospel really changing the content of the book itself? In other words; does it matter if John did not write the gospel of John? It does, but ultimately it doesn't. It does not really matter because changing the name of the author really doesn't change the content of the book; and it doesn't change the nature of the words; the words in that fourth gospel are the inspired words of God Himself, so the ultimate author is God, not John or anybody else; for all I know it could be named 'the gospel according to Lazarus' and I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Where it would become problematic for me is where I have made statements like the ones above and the ones in my last post, if in reality they are not true; then I am making false statements, and I am not being truthful. But I said it before, I'm wrong all the time, so it shouldn't be surprising for anybody that I am, or I might be wrong one more time. Does it matter if I'm wrong? It doesn't; what matters is that God is never wrong, and His words are truth, all of them, one hundred percent, all the time, forever.
The verse numbers are not part of the original manuscripts; I don't have a problem having numbers on the verses so I can find things faster than if they were not there; is there any ongoing debate about the possibility of changing the numbering system? I don't think so, I really don't care too much about that; what I care about is if the words were not there.
In my opinion there is a more important issue with the gospel of John than the author, really; think about it: John 5:4 is in the KJV but it is not in the NIV or the ESV; also, John 7:53-8:11 is not in the original manuscripts and is not considered to be part of scripture by some; what do you think about that BK? Shouldn't I be more concerned with that than who it was who wrote it? I'm just saying. It turns out that those verses are not crucial to my doctrine; maybe I shouldn't read John anymore since I don't really know who wrote it.
The objective of my writing has always been to cause people, mainly my daughters, to look up to Jesus; to direct them to His word, and to motivate them to walk with Him; I said it before, I don't care if no one reads my blog, but I care that someone reads the word of God in pursuit of the truth. I'm not going to tell my girls that the gospel of John was not written by John when I cannot determine that as a fact; and I'm not going to cause them to trip out about this.
For the sake of clarity, here is what I said: "Jesus was never wrong, and He will never be wrong; John was "the disciple whom Jesus loved"; and what he wrote in his gospel he heard and learned it from Jesus; he didn't make up a story, his statements are all inspired by the Holy Spirit and they have been canonized; they are the word of God; so then, when he says that those who believed were born of the will of God and not of the flesh or the will of man; what does that mean? It means what it says; man cannot give birth to himself, either physically or spiritually, period".
My point was that the content of the book of John is the word of God; and that a man cannot be born again unless God makes it happen, that is the main point; now, you can change the name of John for the name of Lazarus and the point is still the same point; what he wrote is still the word of God; and my statement remains the same: no one can be born except God wills it. Change the name "John" for "Lazarus" in my statement above and you will see, the point is still the same.
There is controversy about the book of Hebrews, some say it was written by Paul; some say someone else wrote it, some say....whatever, it is still the book of Hebrews and the content of the letter is still there; it is the word of God; now if I say that Hebrews was written to non believing Jews, I get into a problem because if that is the case, then why is it in the bible, if it wasn't written to me and it's content is not meant to be appropriated by me to apply in my life, then why is it there? God is sovereign and He has preserved His word for a long time; I can call the book of Revelation 'The Apocalypse'; and it really doesn't matter, it is the same book and all the words in it are God's words.
Am I blaspheming because I called the book of John the book of John when someone else might have written it? Or am I blaspheming when I say that John was the disciple whom Jesus loved when it was not John who the author of John was or he wasn't the disciple whom Jesus loved, and no one is certain? Think about it. Does it really matter? What changes if that was the case? Is any of the doctrines of grace changed when we change the name of the author of the book of John? I don't think so; but as I said before, I might be wrong, I'm wrong all the time.
That being said; I looked at the evidence; and it all makes sense; if I was forced to make a decision about the authorship of the book, I might say that it was probably written by Lazarus, and that the name of John might not be the correct name for the fourth gospel but notice I said "if".
The fact is that I don't think that I would ever refer to the book of John as the gospel of Lazarus; whether this is a man made title or it is the incorrect one (why does the name "Pentateuch" not appear anywhere?) , or that it should be referred to as the 'fourth gospel' and that we all have been misled by the traditions of man; no one can be certain for sure; the gospel of John does not name John as the author; you actually have to search and be a detective and then after doing the research make a decision, but there is no absolute certainty at the end. If, as I said, if I had to give a verdict, it would take me a long time to come to the conclusion that John didn't write it.
I am not resisting the idea though; but to me it doesn't make a difference. Next time all I can do is say "the author of the fourth gospel says..."; I'll try, but if I say "John says in his gospel..."; then whatever man, to me this a small issue really. The bigger issues such as election, predestination, justification by faith, the new birth, regeneration, sanctification, etc, are what matters to me and that is what I write about.
The comment by BK included a link to this site: TheFourthGospel.com; I read the book in there and it makes sense to me; but I am not going to turn this into a theological debate because I don't think is worth it.
Now, if you say: "I became a Christian because I made a decision to repent and I asked God to give me His Holy Spirit and I exercised my faith"; then I would say something; if you say: "man is not totally depraved he just needs some help from God to turn from His sin", then I would say something"; if you say: "God loves everybody the same", then I would say something; if you say: "Jesus died for the whole world"; then I would say something; but if you say: "the fourth gospel was written by Lazarus", then I would say; "who knows?", I might even say: "who cares".
Knowledge puffs up, Paul said; (I hope it was Paul); but love edifies, and the truth edifies. I have been thinking about this for a few days and if it is true that Lazarus wrote the fourth gospel, it doesn't change anything for me; I still believe in the same historic Christian faith that I believed before this came up; and it doesn't change anything in my perception of who God is and what He says about man, and about sin, and about eternal life, and death and hell, and all the other doctrines that make up my paradigm, really.
One month has almost passed since I started writing this post and I was hesitant to publish it; but I am doing it; and whatever happens happens. I think I have said enough about this subject, I wasn't going to say anything but I had to, so there.
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