James W. Barker, in Writing and Rewriting the Gospels (Eerdmans, 2025), has challenged the view that the Gospel of John developed independently from the Synoptic Gospels. By arguing that John was written with full literary awareness of Matthew, Mark, and Luke and is meant to be read in light of them, Barker opens a fresh opportunity for exploring how John receives and reinterprets earlier Gospel themes. This paper focuses on one such theme—the kingdom of God—and proposes that John reconceives it through his distinctive emphasis on “eternal life.” Rather than viewing life as simply synonymous with or as a mere substitute for “kingdom,” as many claim, this study argues that John reframes the kingdom motif within a new theological and literary framework. The argument proceeds by summarizing similarities often noted by scholars and then tracing three key differences between “life” in John and “kingdom” in the Synoptics: (1) lexical—they are different words with distinct semantic ranges and connotations; (2) metaphorical—they reflect different conceptual mappings, with kingdom typically portrayed as place or possession, and life as a state of being; and (3) discursive—they operate in different cultural frames, with kingdom belonging to prophetic and political discourse, and life belonging to more theological and philosophical domains. Building on Barker’s work (and Mark Goodacre’s forthcoming related volume), this paper argues that John’s emphasis on life represents a theological rewriting of the Synoptic kingdom theme. The Fourth Gospel does not avoid the kingdom motif, but re-narrates it through the lens of eternal life. This reframing internalizes and personalizes eschatological hope, inviting readers to understand the Gospel of John as both a continuation and a theological reinterpretation of the broader Gospel tradition.