John opens his narrative by an introduction, in which he borrows the mystical language of Oriental philosophy to characterize Jesus, whom he describes as the Life, the Light, the Word; he reports John the Baptist, not as the preacher of the baptism of repentance, but as a prophet of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (ch. 1); in his account of the conversation with Nicodemus (ch. 3), he points out the origin of the spiritual life which Christ imparts to the believer, “Ye must be born from above;” in his report of the conversation with the Samaritan woman, and of the discourse at Capernaum (chaps. 4, 6), he indicates the means by which that life is sustained, by appropriating faith in Christ; and in his record of the intermediate discourse at Jerusalem (ch. 5), the basis for that faith in Christ’s own portrayal of himself as the Son and manifestation of God the Father; in his report of the discourses in the Temple, he sets forth in a different form the same truths. (ch. 7), declares the emancipation from bondage which faith in the Son achieves for the soul, contrasts it with the life of bondage unto sin (ch. 8), and describes the safety and security of the disciples, a security purchased by the death of their Lord (ch. 10); he narrates the resurrection of Lazarus, therein portraying Jesus as the resurrection and the life (ch. 11); he reports those words of Jesus at the Last Supper, the full meaning of which no Christian experience has ever yet fully sounded, in which is promised to the believing disciple a spiritual manifestation of God to the soul, an abiding life of God in the soul, and a joyful realization of all spiritual fullness in God by the soul (chaps. 14, 15, 16); he records the only reported intercessory prayer of the Lord for his disciples (ch. 17), the burden of which is, “As thou Father art in me and I in you, that they also may be one in us;” in the account of the Passion he alone gives the short dialogue between Jesus and Pilate, in which the Lord declares himself a king and his kingdom one of everlasting truth; and in his account of the resurrection (ch. 20), he tells the story of Thomas’s unbelief and of Christ’s warm commendation of “those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Life through faith--this is the burden of John’s Evangel; Jesus Christ the Life-giver, the disciple of Jesus Christ the recipient of a new life--this is the good news which constitutes the Fourth Gospel.