Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Is John’s Gospel the only book in the Bible with an evangelistic purpose? And why is this an important question? Thank you, friend, for joining us today. This is Grace in Focus, the radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Find us at faithalone.org. We would also love you to stop by our YouTube channel. It is YouTube Grace Evangelical Society. Get registered for our 2026 National Annual Conference, May the 18th through the 21st. Details at faithalone.org.

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates. 

KEN: We are discussing the plenary sessions where the main sessions of our upcoming national conference, which we’re going to have, Lord willing, in May. We’re just going through these, hopefully, to whet the appetite of people who might be on the fence about coming. And when you hear some of these topics, you might want to say, man, I’d like to hear more about this. The one we’re going to discuss in this episode, is the Gospel of John the only evangelistic book in the Bible? What do you mean by that is, it’s the only book that was written to tell the unbeliever or for the purpose of telling the unbeliever how they could receive eternal life, or you might say, be saved from the lake of fire. 

BOB: Okay, so let’s talk for a moment about the New Testament. In the New Testament, we know, right Ken, that many of the books were written to groups of people, churches. So like, for example, Galatians was written to the churches in the region called Galatia, or South Galatia. Romans was written to at least 16 different congregations mentioned in Romans chapter 16 that were in Rome. 1 and 2 Thessalonians was written to churches in Thessalonica, right? Ephesians to the church or churches in Ephesus. But we also have letters to individuals, right?

KEN: Like Philemon, Timothy. 

BOB: 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus. And some of the epistles are called general epistles because they’re not written to specific churches, but they’re written more generally to groups of churches. For example, Hebrews or 1 and 2 Peter are general epistles, or 1 John is a general epistle. Then you have a book like Revelation, which is apocalyptic, and is telling us about the end times, particularly about the Tribulation and the Millennium, and then the new heaven and the new earth. And the gospels, the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we’re not specifically told who their readers are, right? 

KEN: Well, in Luke, we got Theophilus, right? 

BOB: Okay. So Theophilus, assuming it was written just particularly for him, then that would be an individual, although I think we can assume that Luke intended this book also to go out to churches. 

KEN: Sure, along with a book of Acts. 

BOB: But you wrote a commentary on Mark, does Mark give an indication who his intended readers are? 

KEN: He sure doesn’t name them, that’s true. 

BOB: And it’s probably fair to say that Matthew and Mark were written to be distributed in churches. That’s what we have in terms of our books, but there’s one book that’s not written to individuals, and it’s not written to churches, specific churches or to groups of churches. There’s one book that’s specifically written to unbelievers. And that book is John’s Gospel. Look at John 20, if you would, 30 and 31, and see what John says his purpose is in writing the book. 

KEN: In John chapter 20:30-31, John says this, “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” So there’s the purpose of the book.

BOB: Right. And I would call that participle believing, I would say, “by believing ” by this man or you would have life in Him. Well, isn’t it pretty clear therefore the people he’s writing to do not yet believe, and they do not yet have life in his name? Who is he writing to? Well, I’ve seen some suggestions. And one of the suggestions was, you remember that when Peter wants to get into the inner court, when Jesus is going through these various trials, John is the one that gets him in, because John’s family was well connected within the Jewish community. They had a fishing business. His dad was very successful. 

And it’s been suggested that John was writing to a group of Jewish people, probably like a family or a group of families. And they may well not be in Palestine. They may be outside somewhere else because he explains some Hebrew words that normally you wouldn’t explain to Jews who spoke Hebrew, but you would to Hellenistic Jews who only spoke Greek. 

KEN: Yeah. So what Bob is talking about here is that in the first century, you had what was called the Diaspora, where many, many, many, many Jews did not live in what we call Israel. They lived in Ephesus, they lived in Asia Minor. They lived all over all over the Roman Empire. And so John is writing his book to someone like that. 

BOB: Now it’s possible that he’s writing to Jewish people who live in Israel and this is some family or group, but what is not possible is that he’s writing to believers because he says “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by believing you may have life in His name.” So when he wrote the book, they were not yet believers. They were not yet born again. Now someone reading the gospel of John could come to faith in John chapter one, right? So by the time they got to get to the purpose statement, they’re like, oh, I’m already a believer. That’s great. But the truth is that’s why it was written. 

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BOB: Now there are some objections. One of the objections I’ve heard to John 20:31 is it doesn’t say everlasting life. Some people say that you may have life in his name. And they say, if he meant everlasting life, he would have said it. Well, I find that hard to believe because there’s lots of places in John’s Gospel where he uses life without mentioning everlasting. And it’s obvious he means it. For example, he says in John 5:24, “He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” Well, obviously he means everlasting life there. And in a book where he’s talked about everlasting life all the way through the book, he’s obviously talking about life in 20:31. 

I did an article, you can look at it, I think there’s something like 20 references of the word life by itself in John’s Gospel where it clearly refers to everlasting life. In fact, when Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life,” or “I am the resurrection and the life,” He means I am everlasting life. In fact, in 1 John, John calls Him everlasting life in chapter one, verses one through four and in 5:21. So John 20:31 is, some people will say, well, no, what that means is that you may have life more abundantly. 

KEN: When you hear people say that, what’s your experience, what kind of life are they talking about?

BOB: Some people I’ve heard say it’s both evangelistic and discipleship. Of course, the problem is that you may believe. So if they’re unbelievers, sure, God wants them to have life and life more abundantly, but you got to believe to get the life and that’s what the verse is talking about. And by the way, have you ever read, for example, Esther? How many times is the name of God appear in Esther? 

KEN: None. 

BOB: None. You think someone could be born again reading the book of Esther? 

KEN: I wouldn’t think so.

BOB: I’ve heard some pretty fanciful explanations of Esther, you know, and they somehow find Jesus in Esther and they find Satan in Esther and they’ve got, you know, all kinds of things in Esther, but you’re not going to come to faith reading Esther, right?

KEN: And I’m reminded of Spurgeon and how he used the Old Testament, no matter what he was talking about in the Old Testament, it wound up talking about the cross. You know, like when an axe head gets thrown into the creek, the wood on the handle represents the wood of the cross or the metal of the axe represents the nails. So yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that they find that in Esther as well. 

BOB: Well, and also the Song of Solomon, the Song of Solomon is about marital love. It only mentions God’s name once and most translations don’t get it. It talks about the fire of YAH. And instead of translating the fire of YAH, it’s often translated something like intense fire or something like that. But nobody’s going to get born again reading the Song of Solomon or 2 John or 3 John or let’s say, Philemon. How somebody can get born again, reading about this slave that’s going back to Philemon. 

KEN: I’ll take it a step further, you mentioned I did a commentary on Mark, read the gospel of Mark, there’s no clear, here’s a gospel representation of believing in Jesus for eternal life. 

BOB: Isn’t that true in all three of the Synoptics? 

KEN: That’s exactly right. 

BOB: There are some allusions, but there’s not direct statements. And even in the epistles, even a verse like Ephesians 2:8-9, which is how I came to faith, somebody has to supply “Christ” for “by grace you have been saved through faith.” There’s nothing about Jesus Christ in that verse. So when it was shared to me, it was “By grace you’re saved through faith in Jesus Christ, and that not of yourselves, it’s the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast.” But you’ve got to supply Jesus Christ there or go further back in the context to find it. 

But the point is that verse was not evangelistic, Paul is using it to remind them that they are born again and verse 10 of Ephesians 2, that they are a part of a new body called the body of Christ. 

KEN: Jews and Gentiles in one body. 

BOB: United in one body. That’s why it switches from “you” to “we” in verse 10. The whole point of the Bible is that every book except the Gospel of John is designed to get people to please God. 

KEN: And I just want to say on this, just logically, this makes sense because when you read Matthew, Mark and Luke, very similar, they’re called the Synoptic Gospels for a reason: to see together, to see as a unit or whatever. John’s completely different. I forgot, what is like 92% of the material in John is unique to the gospel of John. Something like that. 

BOB: That’s right. Now, of course, John’s Gospel wants people to please God too. But the ultimate way we please God, the initial way we please God is by believing in the Son. “This is My beloved Son, hear him.” God, the Father wants everyone to believe in His Son. And so we need to recognize that John’s gospel is evangelistic. It’s the only evangelistic book. Now, people can come to faith through other verses in the Bible, but they’re only going to come to faith by believing the right message. And that right message is found in the gospel of John. 

And the reason why most people flee the gospel of John is because they don’t believe that simply by faith in Jesus, a person has everlasting life. They believe you’ve got to be committed, you’ve got to turn from your sins. 

KEN: You’ve got to be a disciple. 

BOB: You’ve got to follow Him. You’ve got to persevere to the end. And so they go and pick verses here, there and everywhere. The reason we stick with the gospel of John is because the gospel of John’s evangelistic. 

KEN: And it was written for that purpose. 

BOB: It was written for that purpose. We’re using it right. We’re using a hammer as a hammer. We’re not using a saw to try to draw out a nail. And remember, keep grace in focus.

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On our next episode: how do I get my name in the Lamb’s Book of Life? Please join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.