According to John’s Gospel, true religion consists not in obedience to an external law, but in a new life in the soul, by which it is transformed, and the soul, its habits and character, are brought into conformity with the law of God, that is, the law of love. This new and divine life is implanted supernaturally from above; it is fed perpetually by the influence of the divine Spirit; it emancipates the soul from all bondage to sin and the law; for it preparation is made by the life and death of the Lord; in it God is manifested in a peculiar manner to the soul and abides with it, an indwelling Comforter. This life comes through a vital faith in Jesus as in a peculiar sense the Son of God, in whose life the believer finds his ideal of true life, by whose death he is redeemed from death, by whose spiritual power he is raised a new creature in Christ Jesus, by whose abiding presence he is guided, guarded, strengthened, fed. Those incidents and discourses in the life of Christ which illustrate and enforce this aspect of Christian truth and experience are those which John gives us in his Gospel. The other Gospels represent the duties of the disciples, John their privileges; the other Gospels bid them what they ought to do, John points them to what they can become; the other Gospels represent Christ chiefly as a Saviour coming to seek and to save that which is lost, John as a Friend abiding with his own; in the other Gospels he is a Shepherd in the wilderness, in John the Shepherd in the fold; in the other Gospels the Son is either still in the far country or but just returning to his Father’s home, in John he has returned and is abiding in his Father’s love. In the other Gospels, therefore, Jesus is chiefly represented as a divine teacher, in John as a recognized Saviour; in the other Gospels as the Son of man, in John as the Son of God; in the other Gospels we have seen him as he appears to the wanderer, in John as he is interpreted by the heart of the saved; in the other Gospels the bridegroom is coming for his bride and is still the Unknown; in John he has taken her to himself, and her love at least dimly recognizes in him the One among ten thousand and altogether lovely. These aspects of truth may be easily discerned in even a brief survey of the Fourth Gospel.