John 20:30

Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written that ye may believe; and that believing ye may have life in his name.

This is the statement of the purpose of John, every line in the Gospel having been related to the purpose in view here. John never intended his Gospel as merely another biography of Christ. He consciously omitted much material found in the synoptics and introduced a wealth of material found nowhere else, intimate, personal things which only he could relate, and also material of another kind, such as that relating to the resurrection of Lazarus and the healing of the man born blind.

Significantly, John warned his readers that only a fraction of Jesus' mighty words and deeds were published, the very last word in John being a statement of the absolute impossibility of any full reporting of all that Jesus did. The same pertains to all the Gospels; and in the light of this extremely important consideration, how ridiculous are the objections of critics that this or that Gospel omits this or that word or deed with the implication that such omissions reflect against the truth of another Gospel that included them. The only support of such criticisms is inherent bias in the critic. As Hovey said:

The materials were so abundant that they could be used in no other way (except that of abbreviating them). Is it not surprising then that critics like Baur and Strauss say, whenever a miracle or word of Jesus is recorded by only one or two evangelists, that the others KNEW NOTHING OF IT?[11]

Can any truly thoughtful student of the word of God imagine that any of the holy Gospels, or even all of them together, contained anything more than a brief resume of the entire four years of Jesus' world-shaking ministry? It requires a book ten times as large as the whole New Testament to record the history of a six-months campaign for the office of president; and to suppose that the Gospels are any kind of exhaustive record of all that Jesus did is foolish. They are on very tenuous grounds who make arguments based on the silence of this or that Gospel. All the Gospels were actually designed by the Holy Spirit; and the omissions, as well as the inclusions, were purposeful, that purpose being the one announced here at the close of this principal section of the Gospel of John.

This chapter concluded John's proof of the resurrection of Jesus Christ; but, in the larger view, the purpose of the whole gospel was the presentation and proof of Jesus as God come in human form. Of such a being, and in that context, as John was at constant pains to demonstrate, the resurrection was to have been expected. No grave could hold the Lord of Life.