Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
Are written (gegraptai). Perfect passive indicative of grafw, "have been written" by John.
That ye may believe (ina pisteuhte). Purpose with ina and the present active subjunctive of pisteuw, "that you may keep on believing." The book has had precisely this effect of continuous and successive confirmation of faith in Jesus Christ through the ages.
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (Ihsouv estin o Xristov o uiov tou qeou). The man named Jesus is identical with the Messiah (the Anointed One) as opposed to the Cerinthian separation of the Jesus of history and the Christ (aeon) of theology. And the Docetic notion of a phantom body for Jesus with no actual human body is also false. Jesus is the Son of God with all that this high term implies, the Logos of John 1:1-18 (the Prologue). "Very God of very God," Incarnate Revealer of God. But there is a further purpose.
And that believing ye may have life in his name (kai ina pisteuontev zwhn exhte en tw onomati autou). Note present participle pisteuontev (continuing to believe) and the present active subjunctive exhte (keep on having). "Life" (zwhn) is eternal life so often mentioned in this Gospel, life to be found only in the name (and power) of Jesus Christ the Son of God. This verse constitutes a fitting close for this wonderful book and John may at first have intended to stop here. But before he published the work he added the Epilogue (Chapter XXI) which is written in the same style and gives a beautiful picture of the Risen Christ with a side-light on John and Peter (restored to fellowship).
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing John 20:31:
John 1:34
John 5:40
John 11:27
1 John 5:1
1 John 5:13
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