One of the best way to study the Scripture is to compare and look for the differences–Matthew, Mark and Luke as the Synoptic Gospels shares a great amount of the similarities than the differences, however, the Gospel of John, has it’s own unique sources and is different from the three Synoptic Gospels. The main difference between John and the Synoptic Gospels is the seven miracles–only 2 of the miracles presented in John has parallels in the Synoptic Gospels. These miracles are purposed to demonstrate Jesus’ identity as the Son of Man as well as Jesus being the Word that was with God, and was God.(John 1:1) To examine the differences within these miracles is to understand the unique way of how Gospel of John identifies Jesus and His teachings.

According to Ehrman, the miracles works as the demonstration of who Jesus says He is–Jesus performs such signs to proclaim His words are true. These miracle signs all tied back to His teachings: John 4:53 “The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household.” is corresponding to Jesus’ teaching before performing this specific miracle: on verse 4:48, Jesus says: “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.” This particular verse of Jesus’ teaching also ties back to explaining the whole purpose of performing miracles: that is, to make people believe. Similar circumstances goes for verse 6:14, “When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.” ”Once people see Jesus performing miracles, these people starts to believe. Many more verses in John that correspond to the idea that “people will believe when they see (the miracle)”. What this means is that the Gospel of John teaches us about faith and Jesus Christ as the Word through demonstrating a set of signs that was performed by Jesus. The difference between the Gospel of John and the Synoptic Gospels is that Gospel of John focused on drawing audience’s attention towards the miracles and achieve the teachings through the miracle performing events.

John verse 9:3, “…he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” This showed the attitude that the Gospel of John has on the miracle signs: the event of performing miracle is necessary for God’s work to be revealed. In other words, Jesus’ performing miracle is the way to show God’s work and legitimate the identity and the teachings that He is proclaiming.

The miracle signs play the role of getting more people to believe–but what about the miracles that weren’t done or weren’t done on time? To examine this point, let us recall the story of Lazarus: Jesus did not immediately go to Lazarus and perform miracle when Mary and Martha called, instead, Jesus waited 2 days to go to Bethany, where Mary, Martha and Lazarus lives. Because of this delay, Lazarus passed away due to the increase of his illness. However, Jesus said to his disciples who thought Lazarus was merely asleep: “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.”(John 11:14-15) At the end, Jesus prayed and successfully restored Lazarus’ life. According to Ehrman, this delay of performing miracle has even more significance. Ehrman gave a comparison of two examples of delaying from both Mark and John: both stories demonstrated how Jesus is able to defeat death–the delay leads to the increase of the severity of their illness and this severity of illness later enhances the authenticity of Jesus’ teaching. However, as Ehrman pointed out, the delay in Mark and the delay in John has different details: in Mark, Jesus’ delay was inadvertently, it was due to His encounter with someone in the crowd; however, in John, Jesus intent to delay because Lazarus’ death and his resurrection is necessary to reveal God’s work and His glory.

The story of Lazarus is extremely significant because it demonstrated Jesus’ ability to defeat death just as what Jesus declared about Himself: “I am the resurrection and the life.”(11:25) Also, raising Lazarus will cause Jesus’ death later on: after Pharisees learned about Jesus raising Lazarus, they were divided and most of them were furious. Because of this event, the high preist of the year Caiaphas prophesied Jesus death and resurrection, “So from that day on they planned to put him to death.”(11:53) The miracle of Lazarus foretells Christ’s resurrection and the purpose of Jesus’ death, that is, to put Himself down in order to raise the people up: because He raised up all of His people, He Himself has to sacrifice. This event not only presented his ability of performing miracle signs as the Messiah, but also reinsured His identity as the Word/ God because Jesus fulfilled God’s promise of sacrificing Himself for the sake of all His people and this resurrection is demonstrated through the event of raising Lazarus.