- Introduction

THOUGHTS ON THE
MYSTICISM OF JOHN, THE APOSTLE
I believe I had anticipated that it was going to be a pleasure to expound this beautiful and high-soaring Gospel of John. However, I must confess that in my preparation and study a sense of inadequacy has come over me—a feeling of inadequacy so stunning, so almost paralyzing that I am not at this juncture able to call it a pleasure to preach.
Perhaps this will be God’s way of reducing the flesh to a minimum and giving the Holy Spirit the best possible opportunity to do His eternal work. I fear that sometimes our own eloquence and our own concepts may get in the way, for the unlimited ability to talk endlessly about religion is a questionable blessing.
One of the great Bible expositors of the past, A. T. Robertson, has given us this brief assessment of the Gospel of John:
“The test of time has given the palm to the fourth Gospel over all the books of the world. If Luke’s Gospel is the most beautiful, John’s Gospel is supreme in its height and depth and reach of thought.
“The picture of Christ here given is the one that has captured the mind and heart of mankind. The language of this Gospel has the clarity of a spring, but we are not able to sound the depths of the bottom of it. Lucidity and profundity—that is, it is so clear that you can see through it; but so deep that you cannot see clear through it.”
I think that is wonderfully stated.
Now, this John who has given us this Gospel is surely the mystic of the New Testament. I started to say that this John was the mystic of the New Testament—but we must be very careful not to put a was where God put an is for there are no past tenses with the children of God.
Jesus argued for immortality on the grounds that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for the dead are past.
When we talk about a dead man we say was, but when we talk about a living man, we say is. Therefore, it is not really theologically proper to say that John was the mystic of the New Testament. We say, rather, that John is the mystic of the New Testament, even as Paul is the theologian of the New Testament.
Now, this naturally brings together two closely related words: mysticism and theology. I mention these words here because in the minds of some people there is an idea that there is a contradiction between mysticism and theology, between the mystic and the theologian.
Somehow the mystic has earned himself a doubtful reputation, or rather, he has had a doubtful reputation earned for him. That is why so many people feel that they must shy away from anyone who is said to be a mystic.
But John is the mystic of the New Testament even as Paul is the theologian—and I want you to know and understand that in Paul’s theology there is much mysticism and in John’s mysticism there is much theology.
So, in acknowledging that, we do not have a contradiction. We have the one complementing and supplementing the other.
The man Paul possessed an unusual intellect and God was able to pour into his great mind and spirit the great basic doctrines of the New Testament. For God’s purposes Paul was able then to think them through and reason them out and set them down logically; thus he holds that reputation as theologian.
But in the mind of John, God found something different altogether—He found a harp that wanted to sit in the window and catch the wind. He found that John had a birdlike sense about him that wanted to take flight all the time.
Thus, God allowed John, starting from the same premises as the theologian Paul, to mount and soar and sing.
Shakespeare in one of his sonnets drew this word picture:
Like to the lark at break of day,
Arising from sullen earth
Sings hymns at heaven’s gate.
Some may read this Gospel and then say, “John was”—but John is, still is like the lark that rises at the break of day and shakes the dew of the night from his wings and soars to heaven’s gate, singing, singing. He does not really soar any higher than Paul, but he sings just a little bit sweeter and thus gets our rapt attention a little more quickly.
So, in the New Testament, Paul is the theologian who lays foundations strong, and John gets on the parapet, flaps his wings and takes off. That is why it is difficult to preach from John’s heights.
Paul and John do not contradict one another; they do not cancel each other out. They complement each other in such a way that we may describe it by saying that Paul is the instrument and John is the music the instrument brings.
John gives us a beautiful portrait of the eternal Christ, starting with those stark words. In the beginning… And that is where we start with Christianity: not with Buddha and not with Mohammed; not with Joseph A. Smith and not with Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy; not with Father Divine and not with Madame Lavasky. All of these and the countless others like them had a beginning and they all had an ending.
But our Christian life commences with Him who had no beginning and never can have any ending, namely, the Word who was with the Father in the beginning, the Word who was God and the Word who is God!
—A. W. Tozer