If the standpoint of John's Gospel be as we have indicated, we can understand the burden of the Lord's prayer in

John 17, in which He asks that though `His own' refused Him as the Sent One, yet that the world might believe, and

that the world might know that the Father had sent Him.

The word usually translated `miracle' (dunamis) is entirely absent from John's Gospel, and in its place we have a

series of `signs'.

While the unity of the body is not mentioned in John, there is a unity which is very close. This and many other

items of importance must be reviewed later, but we trust that the result of these studies will be not only a deeper

appreciation of the supreme blessedness of the calling that places us `far above all' at the right hand of God, but

further ability to speak with no uncertain sound to saints and sinners, who while giving no evidence of being

destined to this high calling, yet cannot, by reason of the dispensational conditions in which they find themselves,

yield faith or obedience to pentecostal and new covenant messages.

INCLUDE PMS006GK.DOC.D.CHAPTER 6

THE EIGHT SIGNS OF JOHN'S GOSPEL

The miracles recorded by John in his Gospel are fewer in number than those recorded by Matthew. They are

selected for a different purpose, which is explained in John 20:30,31. Like those in Matthew they are dispensational

in character, but where the miracles of Matthew's Gospel relate very particularly to the King and the kingdom, the

miracles of John's Gospel reveal the failure of Israel to perceive that Jesus was the Messiah!

John never employs the word dunamis `mighty work', and only once uses the word teras, `wonder', or `miracle'

(John 4:48), where it is linked with `signs'. Semeion, sign, is the word which John uses in his Gospel, and which

again in another form meets us in the opening words of the Apocalypse -'He sent and SIGNified it'. We are not to

look at the signs recorded by John as exhibitions of power, but rather to seek to discover what they signify. That

there is a designed selection is evident for six of the eight are not recorded by Matthew, Mark or Luke. Further,

while eight are recorded, John bears testimony that `many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples,

which are not written in this book' (20:30; 21:25).

We are not left in doubt as to the inspired purpose for which these eight signs are recorded, for John himself

gives the fullest explanation:

`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' (20:31).

The eight signs recorded, therefore, are set before us with this twofold object, and not these signs only, but

practically every sentence in the narrative is written either to give some further detail concerning the person of

Christ as the Son of God, or to show the nature of believing and receiving life, or rejecting and passing into

condemnation. The Companion Bible in Appendix 176 sets out in very full detail the correspondence which exists

between these different signs. The reader is referred to that for details; a mere summary of the structure must suffice

us here:

A 2:1-11.

THE MARRIAGE IN CANA. The third day. No wine.