At the end of John 20, John makes a simple statement about the reason for writing his book, for writing down some of the things that the disciples saw Jesus do:
Jesus performed many other 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 Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:30-31
Just a few quick observations.
First, John says that Jesus performed many other signs, in addition to what he wrote down. John wasn’t trying to write everything down. You don’t need a record of everything that Jesus did to believe in him. You need to know a few things, and that can change everything.
Second, what John wrote, he wrote so that we would believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. He wrote it so that you would believe something specific. The Messiah is the one that was promised, the one that would could to gather a people for himself, the one that would save his people, the one that would conquer over all that which is evil.
And Jesus is the Son of God. He is God, who has come to earth in the form of a man. He came to reestablish God’s rule and reign here on the earth. Having been sent by the Father, he came to ransom his people away from the kingdom of darkness with his own blood into the kingdom of God. This is all found within what John is writing so that you would believe.
Third, there is something interesting within the context of this chapter that I think is worth noting. John wrote this so that we would believe all of this about Jesus, but even so, there were points along the way that John himself believed, even if he didn’t understand everything.
For example, just a few verses earlier, John says that he believed, even if he didn’t fully understand everything yet.
Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
John 20:8-9
From the broader context, we can understand that this “other disciple” mentioned in the first verse is actually John himself. Peter had gone straight into Jesus’s tomb to look for him, but John had waited outside. But when he went in, he saw, and he believed.
But then he says that they didn’t understand from the Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.
My point here is that we can believe even if we don’t understand everything just yet.
I remember, for example, a time when we had some interns with us here in Catania. I received a call in the late evening that some of them were with a few young men in their room at one of the refugee camps where we had been visiting. They asked me to come because they had some questions.
When I arrived, in reality, they had one question: Is Jesus God? How can the Father be God and Jesus also be God?
I explained the idea that God is one, but that he also shows himself to us as three different persons. Distinct persons, but one being.
Was that all clear? Did they understand everything perfectly? Of course not. I cannot understand it perfectly because God is God and we are simply human beings. He is infinite and we are finite. How can we possibly understand something as foreign to us as the idea that God is one God yet presents himself as three persons?
They didn’t understand everything perfectly, but somehow the explanation satisfied them because they believed. And that belief, that faith, that God was who he said he was and that we would continue to understand more of him over time, allowed them to move forward. The next day, they were baptized, and we still celebrate their decision, even to this day.
So perfect knowledge is not the same thing as faith. Perfect understanding is not the same thing as belief. No, instead, we continue to seek to understand, and it is definitely possible to understand more and more, but that level of perfect understanding is not the reason that John nor any other writer is writing. No one is able to explain everything. Instead, these things are written so that we will believe.