miraculous signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not recorded in this book.

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and

that by believing you may have life in His Name". The Evangelist avoids the normal

word for miracles. He always calls them "signs"; in other words they all signified a

message of truth and we shall find as we consider them that they were given with this

object in mind all through, and in each case they led to a belief in Christ and a knowledge

of salvation and eternal life (20: 30, 31).

John's main object then is basic, not dispensational.  Sin and death are not

dispensational, they affect the whole human race. God's remedy for them is salvation

and eternal life which by no means can be regarded as dispensational or be kept to any

particular time or calling. It is quite amazing how some who profess to value true

dispensational teaching, have never learned to distinguish between what is basic or

foundational Scriptural teaching (i.e. sin and salvation), and what is dispensational

(relating to the various callings of the redeemed). Consequently what is basic is confused

with what is truly dispensational with disastrous results. There are those who by doing

this go so far as to say the Gospel of John is not for today, but for the next age--the

millennium! However, the facts of experience are against them, for the Holy Spirit has

been using this Gospel all through this age of grace to save sinners. How many have

been saved by responding to John 3: 16 is known only to Him, but it must be a very

large number. All of us are sinners under condemnation and death. Therefore all need

salvation, forgiveness and eternal life, and this is just what the Apostle John reveals right

through His Gospel, to be found only in the Lord Jesus Christ and received personally by

faith in Him.

The nation of Israel needs this just as much as the far-off Gentile, and this has been

man's need ever since the fall of Adam. God has only one way of saving sinners,

whoever they are, and this is through the redemption work of His beloved Son. We can

therefore without hesitation proclaim John 20: 29-31 as being truth for today, and this is

essentially the same as the gospel of grace and salvation made known later on through the

Apostle Paul.

In the prologue to the Gospel (1: 1-18) we have the purpose of the whole work

disclosed, the making known of the great eternal God and His glory through the Son of

God, the Lord Jesus Christ. To begin with, we must recognize that with God, the Source

of divine truth, there are no categories of time and space, whereas we human beings can

think only in terms of time/space relationships. The Gospel commences like Genesis, "in

the beginning", but we must remember that with the eternal God there is no beginning of

time nor space.

As someone has said, He is not a creature who must consult watches, clocks,

calendars, yardsticks or other space and time measuring devices. Because the human

mind cannot grasp the concept of unlimited time and space, John, through the Holy

Spirit's guidance, accommodates his writing to our human limitations. He takes us back